LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No. 

ShelL„_.___„ 

- ; ■ / ■ - 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MOMENTS WITH ART 



Moments with Art 



SHORT SELECTIONS 

Jn prose antJ Uerse 

FOR LOVERS OF ART 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McGLURG & CO. 

1899 



,# .* 



TWO COPIES HECE1VED, 



ary cf 


ret«k 


Office 


of thfc 


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Register of 


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51034 




Copyright 




By A. C. McClurg & Co. 


A.D. 1899. 





SECOND COPY, 






TO 



J. W. D. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 



For permission to use poems in this col- 
lection, the compiler wishes to thank Mrs. 
E. S. P. Ward, Miss Dickinson, Miss Marie 
van Vorst, Mr. T. B. Aldrich, Rev. Dr. Henry 
Van Dyke, Prof. Richard Burton, Mr. William 
Allen Butler, Mr. A. R. Macdonough, Mr. C. 
M. Sciple, and Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus. 

Poems by Mrs. Elizabeth S. P.Ward, Emma 
Lazarus, Mrs. Deland, Edgar Fawcett, James 
Russell Lowell, E. R. Sill, E. C. Stedman, 
Henry W. Longfellow, W. W. Story, and 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, are used by per- 
mission of and by special arrangement with 
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Thanks are also due the following authors 
and their publishers : — Messrs. Cassell & Co., 
Magazine of Art : J. M. Templeton, J. F. 
Sullivan, and Sir Joseph Noel Paton. Cassell 
Publishing Co. : Helen Gray Cone. The 



viii &cknotolefcgment. 

Century Co. : Mrs. F. E. Coates, Mrs. A. W. 
Brotherton, Mrs. Bessie C. Parker, Richard 
Watson Gilder, Kenyon Cox, S. Weir 
Mitchell, and R. R. Bowker. Messrs. Dodd, 
Mead & Co. : Austin Dobson and Hamilton 
W. Mabie. Messrs. Harper & Brothers : 
Mrs. A. A. James, Mrs. Minna C. Smith, 
Mrs. Harriet L. Bradley, Marrion Wilcox, 
and Hon. John Hay. The Independent : 
Mrs. L. W. Reese, John Lane, William 
Watson. Leslie's V/eekly : Wm. H. Hayne. 
Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. : Mrs. Louise 
C. Moulton, Susan Coolidge, and Sir Edwin 
Arnold. Messrs. Macmillan & Co. : Chris- 
tina Rossetti and Matthew Arnold. G. P. 
Putnam's Sons : Augusta Larned. 

J. E. P. D. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., 

October, 1899. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

' 05 
80 
46 
90 

126 

193 
32 

114 



After Albert Cuyp S. Weir Mitchell . 

After Ruysdael „ ,, 

After Teniers „ „ 

After Watteau A usti?i Dobson . . 

Andrea del Sarto Robert Browning . 

" Angelo, thou art the Master " . Richard W. Gilder 

Anthony of Padua Harriet L. Bradley 

Antinous of the Vatican . . . Owen Innsly . . . 

Any Sculptor to Any Model . . J.Addingto?iSymonds 

Apollo, and Venus of Medici, The James Thomson 

Ars Servatrix Henry Norman 

Art T.B.Aldrich . 

Art William Watson 

Art Florence Earle Coates 

Art and Love J. Whitcomb Riley 

Art Maxims William Watson . 

Artist, The Michael A ngelo 

Ascending Magdalen, by Ribera, 

The Minna C. Smith . 

Beauty Robert Leighton . 

Before the Picture of the Baptist, 

by Raphael William Wordsworth 150 

Before Titian's Portrait of Himself Minna C. Smith . , 137 

Christ Blessing Little Children Sir Edwin Arnold . 177 
Christ, The (suggested by the 

Pictures of Tissot) . . . Martha G. Dickinson 61 

Copy, A Richard Burton . . 48 

Corot's Orpheus ...... Augusta Lamed . . 42 

Cradle Tomb in Westminster 

Abbey, The Susan Coolidge ... 92 

Daniel's Answer to the King. 

Sonnet on Briton Riviere's 

Painting F. W. Gunsaulus . . 173 



Contents. 



PAGE 

Discouraging Model, A .... J. Whitcomb Riley . 19 

Dutch Picture, A Henry W. Longfellow 47 

Easter in Florence Lord Houghton . . 149 

Engraving, after Murillo, An . . Marr ion Wilcox . . 119 

Epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller . Alexander Pope . . 188 

EurydicetoOrpheus(by Leightou) Robert Browning . . 62 
Extemporaneous Lines on a Por- 
trait of Lady Montagu,, by 

Kneller Ale xatider Pope . . 169 

Face, A Robert Browning . . 23 

Femme Inconnue of the Louvre Kenyon Cox .... 121 

" Finis Coronat Opus " . . . . R. R. Bowker . . . 199 

Flight into Egypt, The .... Henry Van Dyke . . 125 
For "The Wine of Circe," by 

Burne-Jones D. G. Rossetti . . . 148 

Four Pictures by Burne-Jones . J.AddingtonSymonds 88 

Fra Angelico Sir Joseph Noel Paton 102 

Fra Lippo Lippi Robert Browning . . 154 

Gospel of Art, The Kenyon Cox .... 13 

Hiram Powers' Greek Slave . . E. B. Browning . . 176 

Holy Family, by Michelangelo . D. G. Rossetti ... 103 

Hour in a Studio, An (F. L.) . . Richard W. Gilder . 181 

Household Art Austin Dobson . . . 117 

In an Artist's Studio .... Christina Rossetti . . 87 

In an Atelier T. B. Aldrich ... 94 

In the Court of the Lions : by 

Moonlight Louise C. Moulton . . 115 

Individuality Sidney Lanier ... 21 

Ivory Miniature, An Helen Gray Cone . . 33 

Last Supper, The (by Leonardo) William. Wordsworth 99 

Lepage's Joan of Arc .... Helen Gray Cone . . 104 

Lines to a Stupid Picture . . . Austin Dobson . . . 106 
Lines written on the Roof of 

Milan Cathedral .... J.AddingtonSymonds 44 

Lion of Lucerne, The .... Edgar Fawcett . . . 191 

Madonna Lizette W. Reese . . 195 

Madonna, The Emily H. Miller . . 46 

Madonna and Child Alice Archer James . 112 

Madonna of Dagnan-Bouveret, A Robert U. Johnson . 86 
Madonna of Fra Lippo Lippi, A Richard W. Gilder . 141 
Magdalen of the Dresden Gal- 
lery, A A. R. Macdonough . 174 



Contents. xi 



Mater Dolorosa William H. Hay ne . 15 

Meissonier Edgar Fawcett ... 43 

Michael Angelo Henry W. Longfellow 116 



Michael Angelo's Slave . . . Richard W. Gilder . 176 

Michael Angelo's Studio . . . Henry W. Longfellow 59 

Michelangelo's Moses .... William Watson . . 135 

Milan (Da Vinci's Christ) . . . S. Weir Mitchell . . 151 

Millais' Huguenots Anonymous .... 184 

Millet and Zola Lord Houghton . . 100 

Near Amsterdam (after Cuyp) . 6". Weir Mitchell . . 123 

New Colossus, The Emma Lazarus . . 136 

Old and New Art D. G. Rossetti ... 187 

Old Picture-Dealer, The . . . Edmund C. Stedman 54 

Old Pictures in Florence . . . Robert Browning . . 67 
On a Head of Christ, by Quintin 

Matsys Bessie C. Parker . . 31 

On a Portrait of Dante, by Giotto James Russell Lowell 113 
On a Portrait of Wordsworth, by 

B. R. Haydon E. B. Brotvning . . 52 

On a Surf-Rolled Torso of Venus E. Lee Hamilton . . 196 
On Beethoven composing " The 
Moonlight Sonata" (by Benj. 

Constant) J. M7irray Templeton 

On Durer's Melencolia .... William Watson . 

On Raphael's Archangel Michael E. Lee Ha7nilton . 
Our Lady of the Rocks (by Da 

Vinci) D.G. Rossetti . . 

Pa;stum John Hay . . . 

Parthenon by Moonlight, The . Richard W. Gilder 

Pathos of Art, The Sir Lewis Morris . 

Perfection William Watson . 

Pictor Ignotus Robert Brmuning . 

Picture at Newstead, A . . . Matthew Arnold . 

Pictures Sir Lewis Morris . 

Poet expresses his Feelings re- 
specting a Portrait in Delia's 

Parlor, The Robert Southey . . 

Portia's Picture William Shakespeare 196 

Portrait by Burne-Jones, A . . Marie van Vorst . . 192 
Portrait d'une Dame Espagnole 

(Fortuny) E.C. Stedman ... 124 



141 
102 
142 

172 
36 
108 
179 
30 
49 
37 



53 



xii Content*. 



PAGE 

Portrait, The D. G. Rossetti ... 175 

Recognition Martha G. Dickinson 30 

Romney's Remorse Lord Tennyson . . . 143 

Rose and the Statue, The . • . Owen Innsly .... 91 

Ruskin R. R. Bowker . . . no 

Saint Cecilia Richard Burton . . 63 

Sistine Madonna, The . . . . M.E.S 17 

Spring, by Sandro Botticelli . . D. G. Rossetti ... 16 
Students' Day, in the National 

Gallery Sir Edwin Arnold . 81 

Supper at Emmaus, The (by 

Rembrandt) R. W. Gilder ... 197 

Thorwaldsen T. B. Aldrich ... 36 

Titian's Assumption William Allen Butler 57 

Titian's Studio (Titian, Michael 

Angelo, and Vasari) . . . H. W. Longfellow . 38 

To Art William Watson . . 21 

To the Child of the Sistine Ma- 
donna Margaret Deland . . 18 

To Vittoria Colonna Michael Angelo . . 65 

Turner's Old Temeraire . . . James Russell Lowell 170 

Under Raphael's Magdalene . . C. Morton Sciple . . 118 

Unpaid Work Robert Leighton . . 152 

Untrammelled Art James F. Sullivan . 64 

Venus of Milo Richard W. Gilder . 115 

Venus of Milo, The Edward Rowland Sill 24 

Venus of the Louvre .... Emma Lazarus . . 18 
Very Woful Ballade of the Art 

Critic, A. (To E. A. Abbey) Andrew Lang . . . 120 

Vittoria Elizabeth S. P. Ward 98 

Winged Victory, The .... Marie van Vorst . . 138 

Woman and Artist Alice W. Br otherton . 190 



MOMENTS WITH ART. 



The world of art is an ideal world, — 

The world I love, and that I fain would live in ; 

So speak to me of artists and of art. 

Longfellow. 

//. 

God sometimes granteth unto a man to learn 
and know how to make a thing, the like whereof 
in his day no other can contrive ; and perhaps 
for a long time none hath been before him, and 
after him another cometh not soon. 

Albrecht Durer. 

///. 
THE GOSPEL OF ART. 

Work thou for pleasure : paint or sing or carve 
The thing thou lovest, though the body starve. 

Who works for glory misses oft the goal ; 
Who works for money coins his very soul. 

Work for the work's sake, then, and it may be 
That these things shall be added unto thee. 

Kenyon Cox. 



14 foments tott& &rt. 

ART. 

" Let art be all in all," one time I said, 
And straightway stirred the hypercritic gall : 
I said not, " Let technique be all in all," 
But art — a wider meaning. Worthless, dead — 
The shell without its pearl, the corpse of things — 
Mere words are, till the spirit lend them wings. 
The poet who breathes no soul into his lute 
Falls short of art : 't were better he were mute. 

The workmanship wherewith the gold is wrought 
Adds yet a richness to the richest gold : 
Who lacks the art to shape his thought, I 
hold, 
Were little poorer if he lacked the thought. 
The statue's slumber were unbroken still 
Within the marble, had the hand no skill. 
Disparage not the magic touch that gives 
The formless thought the grace whereby it lives ! 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 

V. 

Painting is welcome. 
Painting is almost the natural man ; 
For since dishonor traffics with man's nature, 
He is but outside ; these pencilled figures are 
Even such as they give out. I like your 
work; 

And you shall find I like it. 

Shakespeare. 



foments toitl) Srt. 15 



VI. 

The one thing you have to learn — the one 
power truly called that of " painting " — is to 
lay on any colored substance, whatever its con- 
sistence may be (from mortar to ether), at once, 
of the exact tint you want, in the exact form 
you want, and in the exact quantity you want. 
That is painting. 

Now, you are well aware that to play on the 
violin well requires some practice. Painting is 
playing on a color-violin, seventy-times-seven 
stringed, and inventing your tune as you play 
it ! That is the easy, simple, straightforward 
business you have to learn. The primary ques- 
tion of all is — can you play ? Perfectly, you 
never can, but by birth-gift. The entirely first- 
rate musicians and painters are born, like Mer- 
cury; — their words are music, and their touch 
is gold : sound and color wait on them from 
their youth ; and no practice will ever enable 
other human creatures to do anything like them. 

John Ruskin. 

vii. 

MATER DOLOROSA. 

(Painting in the Antwerp Museum.) 

Mother of Sorrows ! On your Virgin brow 
The shade of Calvary seems falling now ; 
And from your heart a mother's tears uprise 
To fill the fountains of your deathless eyes. 

William H. Haynb. 



1 6 foments tottl) art 

VIII. 

SPRING, BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI. 

(In the Accademia of Florence.) 

What masque of what old wind-withered New 
Year 
Honors this Lady? 1 Flora, wanton-eyed 
For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and 
pied: 
Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer 
Of clasp and kiss : the Graces circling near, 
'Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glori- 
fied : 
And with those feathered feet which hovering 
glide 
O'er Spring's brief bloom, Hermes the har- 
binger. 

Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems 
stand, 
This Lady's temple-columns : o'er her head 
Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is 
read 
Of homage and of hope ? But how command 
Dead Springs to answer? And how question 

here 
These mummers of that wind-withered New 
Year? 

D. G. Rossetti. 

1 The same lady, here surrounded by the masque of Spring, 
is evidently the subject of a portrait by Botticelli, formerly in 
the Pourtales collection in Paris. This portrait is inscribed, 
" Smeralda Bandinelli." 



IX. 
THE SISTINE MADONNA. 

Mary, Mary ! pure and holy, 
Onward floating, onward soaring, 
Heaven's effulgence round thee pouring. 

Mary, Mary ! sweet and lowly, 
Radiant with the mystic shining, 
Angels languish for divining. 

Mary, Mary ! pure and holy, 

In thine arms the Lord of Glory, 

In thine heart the wondrous story. 



Mary, Mary ! sweet and lowly, 
Cherubs pausing to adore thee, 
Lost in love and awe before thee ! 

Mary, Christus ! pure and holy, 
Shadowed eyes, O Love pathetic ! 
Starry eyes, O Light prophetic ! 

Mary, Mary ! sweet and lowly, 
Throbs the hush with music's swaying, 
Human pain and grief allaying. 

M. E. S. 



X. 

What we most need is not so much to real- 
ize the ideal, as to idealize the real. 

F. H. Hedge. 

2 



1 8 Momenta tottl) %LvU 

XI. 
VENUS OF THE LOUVRE. 

Down the long hall she glistens like a star, 
The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to 

stone, 
Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. 
Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not 

mar. 
When first the enthralled enchantress from afar 
Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone, 
Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne, 
As when she guided once her dove-drawn car, — 
But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew, 
Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love. 
Here Heine wept ! Here still he weeps anew, 
Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move, 
While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain, 
For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain. 

Emma Lazarus. 

XII. 
TO THE CHILD OF THE SISTINE MADONNA. 

Through all the mists of years, 

One smiling baby face 
Forever young appears, 

Aglow with childish grace! 

O questioning sweet eyes, 

O head all golden brown, 
Above thee softly lies 

The shadow of a crown ! 

Margaret Deland. 



JHoments toitl) art. 19 

AV//. 
A DISCOURAGING MODEL. 

Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing, 
With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing, 
Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air, 
And a knot of red roses sown in under there 
Where the shadows are lost in her hair. 

Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground 

Of that shadowy hair where the roses are 

wound ; 
And the gleam of a smile O as fair and as faint 
And as sweet as the masters of old used to paint 
Round the lips of their favorite saint ! 

And that lace at her throat, and the fluttering 
hands 

Snowing there, with a grace that no art under- 
stands, 

The flakes of their touches — first fluttering at 

The bow — then the roses — the hair — and 
then that 
Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat. 

O what artist on earth with a model like this, 
Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss, 
Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair, 
Nor the gold of her smile — O what artist could 
dare 
To expect a result half so fair? 

James Whitcomb Riley. 
(From Green Fields and Running Brooks: The 
Bo-wen-Merrill Co.) 



20 jHomntte tottl) %ivt 



XIV. 

" I AM always at work," said a great artist, 
" and when an inspiration comes, I am ready to 
make the most of it." Inspiration rarely leaves 
such a man long unvisited. One looks at Tur- 
ner's pictures with wonder in his heart. In 
this rushing, roaring, sooty London, with its 
leaden skies, its returning clouds and obscuring 
fogs, how were such dreams wooed and won? 
The painter's life answers the question. Lon- 
don had small share of Turner ; he lived in a 
world of his own making, and the flush of its 
sky, the glory of its golden atmosphere, never 
wholly faded from his vision. 

H. W. Mabie. 
xv. 

As to clever people hating each other, I 
think a little extra talent does sometimes make 
people jealous. They become irritated by per- 
petual attempts and failures, and it hurts their 
tempers and dispositions. Unpretending medi- 
ocrity is good, and genius is glorious ; but a 
weak flavor of genius in an essentially common 
person is detestable. It spoils the grand neu- 
trality of a commonplace character, as the 
rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a 
draught of fair water. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



xvi. 
A picture is a poem without words. 



Horace. 



foment* tottl) &rt. 21 

INDIVIDUALITY. 

What the cloud doeth 
The Lord knoweth, 

The cloud knoweth not. 
What the artist doeth, 
The Lord knoweth j 

Knoweth the artist not ? 

Well answered ! O dear artists, ye — 
Whether in forms of curve or hue 

Or tone your gospels be — 
Say wrong This work is not of me, 
But God : it is not true, it is not true. 

Awful is Art because 't is free. 
The artist trembles o'er his plan, 
Where men his Self must see. 
Who made a song or picture, he 
Did it, and not another, God nor man. 

Sidney Lanier. 
{From Poems of Sidney Lanier, copyright, 1884, 1891, 
by Mary D. Lanier, and published by Charles Scribner's 
Sons.) 

XVIII. 
TO ART. 

To Art we go as to a well, athirst, 

And see our shadow 'gainst its mimic skies, 

But in its depth must plunge and be immersed 
To clasp the naiad Truth where low she lies. 

William Watson. 



22 jHoments toitft &rt 

THE APOLLO, AND VENUS OF MEDICI. 

All conquest-flushed, from prostrate Python, 

came 
The quivered god. In graceful act he stands, 
His arm extended with the slackened bow; 
Light flows his easy robe, and fair displays 
A manly, softened form. The bloom of gods 
Seems youthful o'er the beardless cheek to 

wave : 
His features yet, heroic ardor warms ; 
And sweet subsiding to a native smile, 
Mixed with the joy elating conquest gives, 
A scattered frown exalts his matchless air. 

The Queen of Love arose, as from the deep 
She sprung in all the melting pomp of charms. 
Bashful she bends, her well-taught look aside 
Turns in enchanting guise, where dubious mix 
Vain conscious beauty, a dissembled sense 
Of modest shame, and slippery looks of love. 
The gazer grows enamoured, and the stone, 
As if exulting in its conquest, smiles. 
So turned each limb, so swelled with softening art, 
That the deluded eye the marble doubts. 

James Thomson. 

XX. 

Hunt's " Light of the World," is, I believe, 
the most perfect instance of expressional pur- 
pose with technical power which the world has 
yet produced. 

John Ruskin. 



foments tottl) 8rt. 23 

A FACE. 

If one could have that little head of hers 

Painted upon a background of pale gold, 
Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers ! 

No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 
Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 
In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs, 
For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft 

Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's 
Burthen of honey-colored buds to kiss 
And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. 
Then her lithe neck, three fingers might sur- 
round, 
How it should waver on the pale gold ground 
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts ! 
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts 
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb 
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: 
But these are only massed there, I should think, 
Waiting to see some wonder momently 
Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky 
(That 's the pale ground you 'd see this sweet 

face by), 
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one 
eye 
Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 

Robert Browning. 



XXII. 
It is the perfection of art to conceal art. 



Ovid. 



24 foments tottl) &rt» 

THE VENUS OF MILO. 

There fell a vision to Praxiteles : 
Watching through drowsy lids the loitering seas 
That lay caressing with white arms of foam 
The sleeping marge of his Ionian home, 
He saw great Aphrodite standing near, 
Knew her, at last, the Beautiful he had sought 
With life-long passion, and in love and fear 
Into unsullied stone the vision wrought. 

Far other was the form that Cnidos gave 
To senile Rome, no longer free or brave, — 
The Medicean, naked like a slave. 
The Cnidians built her shrine 
Of creamy ivory fine ; 
Most costly was the floor 
Of scented cedar, and from door 
Was looped to carven door 
Rich stuff of Tyrian purple, in whose shade 
Her glistening shoulders and round limbs out- 
shone, 
Milk-white as lilies in a summer moon. 
Here honey-hearted Greece to worship came, 
And on her altar leaped a turbid flame, 
The quickened blood ran dancing to its doom, 
And lip sought trembling lip in that rich gloom. 

But the island people of Cos, by the salt main 
From Persia's touch kept clean, 
Chose for their purer shrine amid the seas 
That grander vision of Praxiteles. 



JHomentfli tottl) 91 xt 25 



Long ages after, sunken in the ground 
Of sea-girt Melos, wondering shepherds found 
The marred and dinted copy which men name 
Venus of Milo, saved to endless fame. 

Before the broken marble, on a day, 
There came a worshiper : a slanted ray 
Struck in across the dimness of her shrine 
And touched her face as to a smile divine ; 
For it was like the worship of a Greek 
At her old altar. Thus I heard him speak : — 

Men call thee Love : is there no holier name 
Than hers, the foam-born, laughter-loving dame ? 
Nay, for there is than love no holier name : 
All words that pass the lips of mortal men 
With inner and with outer meaning shine ; 
An outer gleam that meets the common ken, 
An inner light that but the few divine. 
Thou art the love celestial, seeking still 
The soul beneath the form ; the serene will ; 
The wisdom, of whose deeps the sages dream ; 
The unseen beauty that doth faintly gleam 
In stars, and flowers, and waters where they 

roll; 
The unheard music whose faint echoes even 
Make whosoever hears a homesick soul 
Thereafter, till he follow it to heaven. 

Larger than mortal woman I see thee stand, 
With beautiful head bent forward steadily, 
As if those earnest eyes could see 



26 fflLomnU tottl) &tt. 



Some glorious thing far off, to which thy hand 

Invisibly stretched onward seems to be. 

From thy white forehead's breadth of calm, the 

hair 
Sweeps lightly, as a cloud in windless air. 
Placid thy brows, as that still line at dawn 
Where the dim hills along the sky are drawn, 
When the last stars are drowned in deeps afar. 
Thy quiet mouth — I know not if it smile, 
Or if in some wise pity thou wilt weep, — 
Little as one may tell, some summer morn, 
Whether the dreamy brightness is most glad, 
Or wonderfully sad, — 
So bright, so still thy lips serenely sleep ; 
So fixedly thine earnest eyes the while, 
As clear and steady as the morning star, 
Their gaze upon that coming glory keep. 



Thy garment's fallen folds 
Leave beautiful the fair, round breast 
In sacred loveliness ; the bosom deep 
Where happy babe might sleep ; 
The ample waist no narrowing girdle holds, 
Where daughters slim might come to cling and 

rest, 
Like tendril ed vines against the plane-tree 

pressed. 
Around thy firm, large limbs and steady feet 
The robes slope downward, as the folded hills 
Slope round the mountain's knees, when shadow 

fills 



foments Utli &xt. 27 

The hollow canons, and the wind is sweet 
From russet oat-fields and the ripening wheat. 

From our low world no gods have taken 
wing ; 

Even now upon our hills the twain are wander- 
ing; 

The Medicean's sly and servile grace, 

And the immortal beauty of thy face. 

One is the spirit of all short-lived love 

And outward, earthly loveliness : 

The tremulous rosy morn is her mouth's smile, 

The sky her laughing azure eyes above ; 

And, waiting for caress, 

Lie bare the soft hill-slopes, the while 

Her thrilling voice is heard 

In song of wind and wave, and every flitting 
bird. 

Not plainly, never quite herself she shows; 

Just a swift glance of her illumined smile 

Along the landscape goes ; 

Just a soft hint of singing, to beguile 

A man from all his toil ; 

Some vanished gleam of beckoning arm, to 
spoil 

A morning's task with longing wild and vain. 

Then if across the parching plain 

He seek her, she with passion burns 

His heart to fever, and he hears 

The west wind's mocking laughter when he 
turns, 

Shivering in mist of ocean's sullen tears. 



28 fSLmtntt tottl) &rt. 



It is the Medicean : well I know 

The arts her ancient subtlety will show ; 

The stubble-field she turns to ruddy gold ; 

The empty distance she will fold 

In purple gauze : the warm glow she has kissed 

Along the chilling mist : 

Cheating and cheated love that grows to hate 

And ever deeper loathing, soon or late. 

Thou too, O fairer spirit, walkest here 
Upon the lifted hills : 

Wherever that still thought within the breast 
The inner beauty of the world hath moved; 
In starlight that the dome of evening fills; 
On endless waters rounding to the west : 
For them who thro' that beauty's veil have loved 
The soul of all things beautiful the best. 
For lying broad awake, long ere the dawn, 
Staring against the dark, the blank of space 
Opens immeasurably, and thy face 
Wavers and glimmers there and is withdrawn. 
And many days, when all one's work is vain, 
And life goes stretching on, a waste gray plain, 
With even the short mirage of morning gone, 
No cool breath anywhere, no shadow nigh 
Where a weary man might lay him down and die, 
Lo ! thou art there before me suddenly, 
With shade as if a summer cloud did pass, 
And spray of fountains whispering to the grass. 
Oh, save me from the haste and noise and heat 
That spoil life's music sweet : 
And from that lesser Aphrodite there — 



foments toitl) &rt. 29 



Even now she stands 

Close as I turn, and, O my soul, how fair ! 

Nay, I will heed not thy white beckoning hands, 

Nor thy soft lips like the curled inner leaf 

In a rosebud's breast, kissed languid by the sun, 

Nor eyes like liquid gleams where waters run. 

Yea, thou art beautiful as morn ; 

And even as I draw nigh 

To scoff, I own the loveliness I scorn. 

Farewell, for thou hast lost me : keep thy train 

Of worshipers ; me thou dost lure in vain : 

The inner passion, pure as very fire, 

Burns to light ash the earthlier desire. 

O greater Aphrodite, unto thee 
Let me not say farewell. What would Earth be 
Without thy presence ? Surely unto me 
A life-long weariness, a dull, bad dream. 
Abide with me, and let thy calm brows beam 
Fresh hope upon me every amber dawn, 
New peace when evening's violet veil is drawn. 
Then, tho' I see along the glooming plain 
The Medicean's waving hand again, 
And white feet glimmering in the harvest-field, 
I shall not turn, nor yield ; 

But as heaven deepens, and the Cross and Lyre 
Lift up their stars beneath the Northern Crown, 
Unto the yearning of the world's desire 
I shall be 'ware of answer coming down ; 
And something, when my heart the darkness 

stills, 
Shall tell me, without sound or any sight, 



3o ^omenta toitl) &vt. 



That other footsteps are upon the hills ; 
Till the dim earth is luminous with the light 
Of the white dawn, from some far-hidden shore, 
That shines upon thy forehead evermore. 

Edward Rowland Sill. 



XXIV. 
RECOGNITION. 

An artist feels the genius where 
A critic cries, 

" Only the hinted beauty of a fair 
Conception marred beyond repair, 
That truth belies." 

To him whose heart has 4 borne the strain 
Of hope and fear, 
His own swift visions to retain 
Beyond a semblance of disdain, 
All work is dear. 

Martha Gilbert Dickinson. 



XXV. 
PERFECTION. 

To keep in sight Perfection, and adore 
The vision, is the artist's best delight; 

His bitterest pang, that he can ne'er do more 
Than keep her long'd-for loveliness in sight. 
William Watson. 



foments totti) &rt 31 



XXVI. 

ON A HEAD OF CHRIST, BY QUINTIN 

MATSYS. 

(Fifteenth Century.) 

A grieving face, adown whose hollow cheek 
The bright tears fall from tender, mournful 
eyes ; 

Eyes, sad with never finding what they seek, 
Lips, curved by many weary, wasting sighs. 

The tear-drops glisten — frail they seem and 
slight, 
As though a breath would sweep them into 
air; 
And yet four hundred years of day and night 
Have passed since first the painter formed 
them there. 

How strange that they should last, those painted 
tears, 
While kingdoms perish, nations fall and rise ; 
Strange that through all the stormy rush of 
years 
They lie unchanged in those sad, grieving 
eyes. 

Does He yet mourn ? The world from Him 
enticed 
Wanders afar, and will not walk His way. 
O patient One ! O weary, watching Christ, 
Are the tears wet upon Thy face to-day ? 

Bessie Chandler Parker. 



32 JHomente tott& &rt 

ANTHONY OF PADUA. 
(Murillo.) 
This story with its simple rhyme, 
This picture by a hand sublime, 
Spring from a legend in the time 
Of Anthony of Padua. 

Some doubt had cast its shadows strong 
Upon the Saint, who well and long 
Fought manfully to right this wrong — 
Fought day and night in Padua. 

Till in his arms, so it is told, 
The Saint did his dear Lord enfold, 
And there appeared a light like gold 
From out the skies of Padua. 

" O Christ Child, art Thou come to me ! 
With wonder sweet I welcome Thee. 
O Christ Child, can this wonder be ! " 
Cried Anthony of Padua. 

" I thank Thee, Blessed One, for this. 
Forgive what I have done amiss ! 
And let me greet Thee with a kiss, 

Thou Dear One, come to Padua!" 

" To him who struggles with his might 
Our Lord has promised to bring light 
And glory, as of lilies white," 
The angels sang in Padua. 

Harriet Lewis Bradley. 



XXVIII. 
AN IVORY MINIATURE. 

When State Street homes were stately still ; 
When out of town was Murray Hill; 

In late-deceased " old times " 
Of vast, embowering bonnet-shapes, 
And creamy-crinkled Canton crapes, 

And florid annual-rhymes, 

He owned a small suburban seat 
Where now you see a modern street, 

A monochrome of brown ; 
The sad "brown-brown " of Dante's dreams, 
A twilight turned to stone, that seems 

To weight our city down. 

Through leafy chestnuts whitely showed 
The pillared front of his abode : 

A garden girt it 'round, 
Where pungent box did trim enclose 
The marigold and cabbage-rose, 

And "pi'ny" heavy-crowned. 

Yea, whatso sweets, the changing year's, 
He most affected. Gone, but here 's 

His face who loved them so. 
Old eyes like sherry, warm and mild ; 
A cheek clear-hued as cheek of child; 

Sleek head, a sphere of snow. 
3 



34 Jftomente tottfc &tt. 



His mouth was pious, and his nose 
Patrician ; with which mould there goes 

A disaffected view. 
In those sublime, be-oratored, 
Spread-eagle days, his soul deplored 

So much red-white-and-blue ! 

In umber ink, with S's long, 

He left behind him censure strong 

In stiffest phrases clothed ; 
But Time — a pleasant jest enough ! — 
Has turned the tory leaves to buff, 

The liberal hue he loathed. 

Of many a gentle deed he made 
Brief simple record. Never fade 

Those everlasting-flowers 
That spring up wild by good men's walks ; 
Opinions wither on their stalks, 

And sere grow Fashion's bowers. 

Erect, be-frilled, in neckcloth tall, 
His semblance sits, removed from all 

Our needs and noises new ; 
Released from all the rent we pay 
As tenants of the large To-day, 

Cool, in a background blue. 

And he, beneath a cherub chipped, 
Plump, squamous-pinioned, pouting-lipped, 

Sleeps calm where Trinity 
Points finger dark to clouds that fleet; 
A warning, seen from surging street, 

A welcome, seen from sea. 



^omenta toitti %LxU 35 



There fall, ghosts glorified of tears 
Shed for the dead in buried years, 

The silver notes of chimes ; 
And there, with not unreverent hand 
Though light, I lay this " greene garland," 

This woven wreath of rhymes. 

Helen Gray Cone. 

XXIX. 

Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, color 
is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. 
We speak rashly of gay color and sad color, 
for color cannot at once be good and gay. All 
good color is in some degree pensive; the 
loveliest is melancholy, and the purest and most 
thoughtful minds are those which love color 
the most. John Ruskin. 

xxx. 

Architecture is the art which so disposes 
and adorns the edifices raised by man, for 
whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may 
contribute to his mental health, power, and 
pleasure. John Ruskin. 

XXXI. 

Genius is nothing but a great capacity for 
patience. Buffon. 

xxxii. 

Nature is the art of God. 

Sir Thomas Browne. 



36 jHoments tottl) ^Crt. 

xxxm. 

P^STUM. 

Two thousand years these temples have been 
old, 
Yet were they not more lovely the first day 
When o'er yon hills the young light blushed 
and lay 
Along these tapering columns, and eve's gold 
Over the Tyrrhene sea in glory rolled. 

By power of truth, by beauty's royal sway, 
While men and creeds and kingdoms pass 
away, 
Their gift to charm and awe they calmly hold. 
Beauty and truth ! by that high grace divine 
They force the tribute of the vassal years. 
Clouds gloom ; the blue wave dimples ; the 
stars shine, 
To make them fairer; even Time, that tears 
And shames all other things, here can but bless 
And beautify this crumbling loveliness. 

John Hay. 

XXXIV. 
THORWALDSEN. 

We often fail by searching far and wide 
For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn 
We ask fair wind and favorable tide. 
From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn 
To make Occasion, not to be denied. 
Against the sheer, precipitous mountain-side 
Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne. 

T. B. Aldrich. 



XXXV. 
A PICTURE AT NEWSTEAD. 

What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest 

swell ? 
'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry 
Stormily sweet, his Titan agony ; 
It was the sight of that Lord Arundel 

Who struck, in heat, his child he loved so well, 
And his child's reason flicker'd, and did die. 
Painted (he will'd it) in the gallery 
They hang ; the picture doth the story tell. 

Behold the stern, mailed father, staff in hand ! 
The little fair-hair'd son, with vacant gaze, 
Where no more lights of sense or knowledge 
are ! 

Methinks the woe which made that father stand 
Baring his dumb remorse to future days, 
Was woe than Byron's woe more tragic far. 

Matthew Arnold. 

XXXVI. 

An artist is — and recollect this definition 
(put in capitals for quick reference), — A per- 
son WHO HAS SUBMITTED TO A LAW WHICH IT 
WAS PAINFUL TO OBEY, THAT HE MAY BESTOW 
A DELIGHT WHICH IT IS GRACIOUS TO BESTOW. 

RUSKIN. 



38 foments tott& &rt. 

XXXVII. 

TITIAN'S STUDIO. 

(A painting of Danae with a curtain before it. Titian, 

Michael Angelo, and Vasari.) 

Michael Angelo. 
So you have left at last your still lagoons, 
Your City of Silence floating in the sea, 
And come to us in Rome. 
Titian. 

I come to learn, 
But I have come too late. I should have seen 
Rome in my youth, when all my mind was open 
To new impressions. Our Vasari here 
Leads me about, a blind man, groping darkly 
Among the marvels of the past, I touch them, 
But do not see them. 

Michael Angelo. 

There are things in Rome, 
That one might walk barefooted here from 

Venice 
But to see once, and then to die content. 

Tell me of art in Venice. Three great names, 
Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto, 
Illustrate your Venetian school, and send 
A challenge to the world. The first is dead, 
But Tintoretto lives. 

Titian. 

And paints with fire, 
Sudden and splendid, as the lightning paints 
The cloudy vault of heaven. 



foments toitf) 8tt* 39 



Vasari. 

Does he still keep 
Above his door the arrogant inscription 
That once was painted there, — " The color of 

Titian, 
With the design of Michael Angelo " ? 

Titian. 
Indeed, I know not. 'T was a foolish boast, 
And does no harm to any but himself. 
Perhaps he has grown wiser. 

Michael Angelo. 
And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture 
Of Danae, of which I hear such praise. 

Titian, drawing back the curtain. 
What think you ? 

Michael Angelo. 

That Acrisius did well 
To lock such beauty in a brazen tower, 
And hide it from all eyes. 
Titian. 

The model truly 
Was beautiful. 

Michael Angelo. 

And more, that you were present, 
And saw the showery Jove from High Olympus 
Descend in ail his splendor. 

Titian. 

From your lips 
Such words are full of sweetness. 



40 foments toit& %Lvt 



Michael Angelo. 

You have caught 
These golden hues from your Venetian sunsets. 

Titian. 
Possibly. 

Michael Angelo. 
Or from sunshine through a shower 
On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic. 

And thus the works of every artist show 
Something of his surroundings and his habits. 
The uttermost that can be reached by color 
Is here accomplished. Warmth and light and 

softness 
Mingle together. Never yet was flesh 
Painted by hand of artist, dead or living, 
With such divine perfection. 
Wonderful ! wonderful ! The charm of color 
Fascinates me the more that in myself 
The gift is wanting. I am not a painter. 

Vasari. 
Messer Michele, all the arts are yours, 
Not one alone j and therefore I may venture 
To put a question to you. 
Which is the greater of the sister arts, 
Painting or sculpture ? Solve for me the doubt. 

Michael Angelo. 

Georgio Vasari, I have often said 
That I account that painting as the best 



foments tottl) $tt. 41 



Which most resembles sculpture. Here before 

us 
We have the proof. Behold these rounded 

limbs ! 
How from the canvas they detach themselves, 
Till they deceive the eye, and one would say, 
It is a statue with a screen behind it ! 

And now, Maestro, I will say once more 

How admirable I esteem your work, 

And leave you, without further interruption. 

Titian. 
Your friendly visit hath much honored me. 

Vasari. 
Farewell. 

Michael Angelo, to Vasari, going out. 

If the Venetian painters knew 
But half as much of drawing as of color, 
They would indeed work miracles in art, 
And the world see what it hath never seen. 

Henry W. Longfellow. 



XXXVIII. 

Even in portraits, the grace — and, we may 
add, the likeness — consists more in taking the 
general air than in observing the exact simil- 
itude of every feature. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds. 



42 Jftomenta tottl) &rt. 

xxxix. 

COROT'S ORPHEUS. 

Sweet dove of dawn with silver breast, 
Seen dimly through the fleeting shade, 

Drugged with her warm and dreamless rest, 
The earth scarce wakes ere thou dost fade. 

Color unborn in herb or tree, 

Floats dimly on the silent air, 
And beauty, fluent still and free, 

A spirit breathing everywhere. 

Vast depths of space that seem to thrill 
And tremble with the coming day, 

That mystic moment prayerful still, 
Ere gold has flooded all the gray. 

High mottled clouds upon the edge 
Have caught a little quivering beam, 

No dewdrop shining on the hedge, 
No light upon the hidden stream. 

But all the landscape drenched with dew, 
And freshness stealing from the founts ; 

Bright beams that pierce the tree-tops through, 
While in the east a glory mounts. 

Stealthy the breath from herb and flower 

Creeps now through dripping leaves and grass, 

To pay sweet tribute to the hour, 
And freeze the breezes as they pass. 



^filaments toitl) %LvU 43 

The god comes forth to greet the light, 
Dilating with the breath of song, 

And like a swallow in its flight 
By inspiration borne along. 

He grasps the lyre with careless hand, 
Forgetful of its charmed strings ; 

One moment ere their tones expand, 
The voiceless spirit soars and sings. 

Sacred as truth these hues and lines, 

Religious as a minster aisle ; 
When reverence thy soul inclines, 

Come gaze and lose thyself the while. 

Augusta Larned. 

XL. 
MEISSONIER. 

Watching your precious work, we vainly guess 
What miracle creates as potent fact 

Such height in brevity, width in narrowness, 
And liberal vigor wed with cunning tact. 

Your virile patience that no toil can crush, 
The more we muse upon we prize the more, 

O Liliput Angelo, whose wizard brush 
Could paint a battle upon a lonis d^orl 

Edgar Fawcett. 

XLI. 

Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt ; 
Nothing 's so hard but search will find it out. 

Herrick. 



44 JHoments toiib &vt 



XLII. 

LINES WRITTEN ON THE ROOF OF MILAN 
CATHEDRAL. 

"A mount of marble, a hundred spires." 

The long, long night of utter loneliness, 
Of conflict, pain, defeat, and sore distress, 
Hath vanished ; and I stand as one whose life 
Wages with death a scarcely winning strife, 
Here, on this mount of marble. Like a sea 
Waveless and blue, the sky's transparency 
Bathes spire and statue. Was it man or God 
Who built these domes, whereon the feet have 

trod 
Of eve and night and morn with rose and gold 
And silver and strange symbols manifold 
Of shadow ? Fabric not of stone but mist 
Or pearl or cloud beneath heaven's amethyst 
Glitters the marvel : cloud congealed to shine 
Through centuries with lustre crystalline; 
Pearl spiked and fretted like an Orient shell ; 
Mist on the frozen fern-wreaths of a well. 
Not God's but man's work this : God's yonder 

fane, 
Reared on the distant limit of the plain, 
From azure into azure, to blue sky 
Shooting from vapors blue that folded lie 
Round valley-basements, robed in royal snow, 
Wherefrom life-giving waters leaping flow, 
Aerial Monte Rosa ! — God and man 
Confront each other, with this narrow span 



foments toify &rt. 45 



Of plain to part them, try what each can do 
To make applauding Seraphs from the blue 
Lean marvel-smitten, or alight with song 
Upon the glittering peaks, or clustering throng 
The spacious pathways. God on man's work 

here 
Hath set His signature and symbol clear; 
Man's soul that thinks and feels, to God's work 

there 
Gives life, which else were cold and dumb and 

bare. 
God is man's soul ; man's soul a spark of God : 
By God in man the dull, terrestrial clod 
Becomes a thing of beauty; thinking man 
Through God made manifest, outrival can 
His handiwork of nature. Do we dream 
Mingling reality with things that seem ? 
Or is it true that God and man appear 
One soul in sentient art self-conscious here, 
One soul o'er senseless nature stair by stair 
Raised to create by comprehending there ? 

J. Addington Symonds. 

XLIII. 

Artists are of three classes : those who per- 
ceive and pursue the good, and leave the evil ; 
those who perceive and pursue the good and 
evil together, the whole thing as it verily is ; 
and those who perceive and pursue the evil and 
leave the good. 

John Ruskin. 



46 foments tott& %Lxt 

XL IV. 
THE MADONNA. 

Down from her shrine the dear Madonna gazed, 

Her baby lying warm against her breast, 
" What does she see ? " he whispered ; " can she 
guess 
The cruel thorns to those soft temples 
pressed? " 
" Ah, no ! " she said, "she shuts him safe from 

harms, 
Within the love-locked harbor of her arms. 
.No fear of coming fate could make me sad 
If so, to-night, I held my little lad." 

Emily Huntington Miller. 



XLV. 
AFTER TENIERS. 

A quiet curve of sombre brown water, 

Flecked with duck-weed and dotted with 
leaves ; 

A low brick cottage, where shadows nestle 
'Neath velvet edges of well-thatched eaves. 

In front a space, with its gaudy dahlias, 
And solid shade of the branching lime, 

Where, soberly gay, two boors are drinking 
In the deep'ning gloom of the evening time. 
S. Weir Mitchell. 



JHoments toitl) &rt. 47 

A DUTCH PICTURE. 

But when the winter rains begin, 

He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, 
And old sea-faring men come in, 
Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin, 
And rings upon their hands. 

They sit there in the shadow and shine 
Of the nickering fire of the winter night; 

Figures in color and design 

Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, 
Half darkness and half light. 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

XL VII. 
ART MAXIMS. 

Often ornateness 
Goes with greatness ; 
Oftener felicity 
Comes of simplicity. 

Talent that's cheapest 
Affects singularity. 
Thoughts that dive deepest 
Rise radiant in clarity. 

No record Art keeps 
Of her travail and throes. 
There is toil on the steeps, — 
On the summits, repose. 

William Watson. 



48 JHoments toitl) 9trt 

XL VIII. 
A COPY. 

I walked a gallery of famous names 

And famous fancies, framed in lines of gold, — 

The paintings that a world has reckoned good, — 

And saw, before a canvas that did limn 

Some mythic story with a wondrous grace 

(For Rubens was the painter, I recall), 

An old, bent man whose long and silvered locks 

Swept down his shoulders, and whose trembling 

hand 
Moved steadier as it grasped the brush, where- 
with 
He sketched a copy of the masterpiece ; 
His easel just aside, that no offence 
Of barring sight from those who came to gaze 
At Rubens' work might be imputed his. 
Straightway the wall, with all its freight of tales 
In colors told, grew blurred before mine eyes, 
And lost its old allurement ; for I could 
See nothing but the patient plodder there, 
Whom death might overtake, and find undone 
Full half the figures he must fitly draw 
To all-complete the picture, let alone 
The laying on of oils to give it life ; 
And who, undaunted, calm, and happy-eyed, 
Did sit and sketch, and leave the rest to God. 
Without the hope of making earthly fame, 
Yet cheered, perchance, in knowing that his art 
Would have eternity to ripen in, 
Until he blent his soul with Rubens' own. 

Richard Burton. 



foments \nify &xt 49 

XL IX. 
PICTOR IGNOTUS. 
(Florence, 15 — .) 
I could have painted pictures like that youth's 
Ye praise so. How my soul springs up ! No 
bar 
Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while 
it soothes ! 
— Never did fate forbid me, star by star, 
To outburst on your night, with all my gift 
Of fires from God : nor would my flesh have 
shrunk 
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift 
And wide to heaven, or straight like thunder, 
sunk 
To the centre, of an instant ; or around 
Turned calmly or inquisitive, to scan 
The license and the limit, space and bound, 

Allowed to truth made visible in man. 
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, 

Over the canvas could my hand have flung, 
Each face obedient to its passion's law, 

Each passion clear proclaimed without a 
tongue : 
Whether Hope rose at once in. all the blood, 

A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, 
Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood 
Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its 
place ; 
Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, 
And locked the mouth fast, like a castle 
braved, — 



5o ^omenta tottb &rt. 



O human faces ! hath it split, my cup ? 

What did ye give me that I have not saved ? 
Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well !) 
Of going — I, in each new picture, — forth, 
As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, 
To Pope, or Kaiser, East, West, South, or 
North, 
Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, 

Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 
Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, 
Through old streets named afresh from the 
event, 
Till it reached home, where learned age should 
greet 
My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct 
Above his hair, lie learning at my feet ! — 

Oh ! thus to live, I and my picture, linked 
With love about, and praise, till life should 
end, 
And then not go to heaven, but linger here, 
Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend, 
The thought grew frightful, 'twas so wildly 
dear ! 
But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such 
sights 
Have scared me, like the revels through a 
door 
Of some strange house of idols at its rites ! 
This world seemed not the world it was, 
before : 
Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there 
trooped 



JHomente frith ^Crt. 51 



. . . Who summoned those cold faces that 
begun 
To press on me and judge me ? Though I 
stooped 
Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, 
They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . 
enough ! 
These buy and sell our pictures, take and 
give, 
Count them for garniture and household-stuff, 
And where they live needs must our pictures 
live 
And see their faces, listen to their prate, 

Partakers of their daily pettiness, 
Discussed of, — "This I love, or this I hate, 

This likes me more, and this affects me less! " 
Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles 

My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint 
These endless cloisters and eternal aisles 

With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint, 
With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — 

At least no merchant traffics in my heart ; 
The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward 

Vain tongues from where my pictures stand 
apart : 
Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine 

While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, 
They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 
'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. 
So, die my pictures ! surely, gently die ! 

O youth ! men praise so, — holds their praise 
its worth ? 



52 JHomente tottl; &rt. 



Flown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry ? 
Tastes sweet the water with such specks of 
earth ? 

Robert Browning. 

L. 

ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH, BY B. R. 
HAYDON. 

Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud 

Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind 

Then break against the rock, and show behind 

The lowland valleys floating up to crowd 

The sense with beauty. He with forehead 

bowed 
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined 
Before the sovran thought of his own mind, 
And very meek with inspirations proud, 
Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest 
By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer 
To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free 
Our Haydon's hand has flung out from the mist : 
No portrait this, with Academic air ! 
This is the poet and his poetry. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



LI. 

The Greek in nature saw his gods half-hidden 

lurk ; 

And copying nature, wrought his gods into his 

work. 

W. W. Story. 



JHomcnts tottl) &xt 53 



LII. 

THE POET EXPRESSES HIS FEELINGS RE- 
SPECTING A PORTRAIT IN DELIA'S 
PARLOR. 

I would I were that portly gentleman, 
With gold-laced hat and golden-headed cane, 
Who hangs in Delia's parlor ! for, whene'er 
From book or needlework her looks arise, 
On him converge the sunbeams of her eyes, 
And he unblamed may gaze upon My Fair, 
And oft My Fair his favored form surveys. 
Oh, Happy Picture, still on Her to gaze ! 
I envy him ; and jealous fear alarms, 
Lest the strong glance of those divinest charms 
Warm him to life, as in the ancient days, 
When marble melted in Pygmalion's arms. 
I would I were that portly gentleman, 
With gold-laced hat and golden-headed cane ! 

Robert Southey. 

LIII. 
I say that the art is greatest which conveys 
to the mind of the spectator, by any means, 
whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest 
ideas ; and I call an idea great in proportion as 
it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, 
and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, 
exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is 
received. If this then be the definition of great 
art, that of a great artist naturally follows. He 
is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the 
sum of his works, the greatest number of the 
greatest ideas. John Ruskin. 



54 JHomentsi toitl) &rt. 

LIV. 
THE ASCENDING MAGDALEN, BY RIBERA. 

Forgiven woman, spirit unafraid 

Borne upward by child angels to the throne, 
Nearing the presence of thy Lord alone, 

Humanly outcast, neither wed nor maid, 

But with thy soul's soul pure, although the 
shade 
Of anguish past is in thy eyes, the moan 
Of sorrow stilled upon thy lips, its tone 

Piercing the breast as 't were grief unallayed. 

Yet is thy ragged garment royal dress, 

And in the Lamb's blood is thy mantle dyed 
From the deep heart of slain and risen Love. 
Thy hair a halo is — each holy tress 

That wiped thy Master's feet a sign above 
All pardoning words thou shalt in peace abide ! 

Minna C. Smith. 

LV. 
THE OLD PICTURE-DEALER. 

The second landing-place. Above, 

Sun-pictures for a shilling each. 
Below, a haunt that Teutons love, — 

Beer, smoke and pretzels all in reach. 
Between the two, a mouldy nook 

Where loungers hunt for things of worth — 
Engraving, curio, or book — 

Here drifted from all over Earth. 



Jft0mente tottfc 8rt. 55 



Be the day's traffic more or less, 

Old Brian seeks his Leyden chair 
Placed in the ante-room's recess, 

Our connoisseur's securest lair: 
Here, turning full the burner's rays, 

Holds long his treasure-trove in sight, — 
Upon a painting sets his gaze 

Like some devoted eremite. 

The book-worms rummage as they will, 

Loud roars the wonted Broadway din, 
Life runs its hackneyed round, — but still 

One tireless boon can Brian win, — 
Can picture in this modern time 

A life no more the world shall know, 
And dream of Beauty at her prime 

In Parma, with Correggio. 

Withered the dealer's face, and old, 

But wearing yet the first surprise 
Of him whose eyes the light behold 

Of Italy and Paradise: 
Forever blest, forever young, 

The rapt Madonna poises there, 
Her praise by hovering cherubs sung, 

Her robes by ether buoyed, not air. 

See from the graybeard's meerschaum float 
A cloud of incense ! Day or night, 

He needs must steal apart to note 
Her grace, her consecrating light. 



$6 foments tottl) &rt. 



With less ecstatic worship lay, 
Before his marble goddess prone, 

The crippled poet, that last day 

When in the Louvre he made his moan. 

Warm grows the radiant masterpiece, 

The sweetness of Correggio ! 
The visionary hues increase, 

Angelic lustres come and go ; 
And still, as still in Parma too, — 

In Rome, Bologna, Florence, all, — 
Goes on the outer world's ado, 

Life's transitory, harsh recall. 

A real Correggio ? And here ! 

Yes, to the one impassioned heart, 
Transfiguring all, the strokes appear 

That mark the perfect master's art. 
You question of the proof ? You owe 

More faith to fact than fancy? Hush ! 
Look with expectant eyes, and know, 

With him, the hand that held the brush ! 

The same wild thought that warmed, from stone 

The Venus of the monkish Gest, 
The image of Pygmalion, 

Here finds Correggio confest. 
And Art requires its votary : 

The Queen of Heaven herself may pine 
When these quaint rooms no longer see 

The one that knew her all divine. 



foments tottfc %Lvt 57 



Ah me ! ah me, for centuries veiled ! 

(The desolate Virgin then may say,) 
Once more my rainbow tints are paled 

With that unquestioning soul away — 
Whose faith compelled the sun, the stars, 

To yield their halos for my sake, 
And saw through Time's obscuring bars 

The Parmese master's glory break ! 

E. C. Stedman. 

LVI. 
TITIAN'S ASSUMPTION. 

Burst is the iron gate ! 

And, from the night of fate ; 
Out of the darkness and the gloom abhorred ; 

Amidst the choral hymn, 

With cloud and cherubim, 
The Virgin leaves the tomb, — arisen like her 
Lord! 

Free in the heavens she soars, 

While the clear radiance pours, 
Like a vast glory, round her upward face ; 

And higher still and higher, 

With the angelic choir, 
The soul by grace regained, regains the realms 
of grace. 

In mortal shape ! and yet, 
Upon her brow is set, 
The new celestial glory like a crown ; 



58 foments tottfr %LxU 



Her eyes anticipate 
The bright eternal state ; 
Her arms to heaven extend ; to her the heavens 
reach down ! 

We, with the saints beneath, 
Half lose our mortal breath, 
With sense and soul still following where she 
flies ; 

They, rapt into the light 
Of the miraculous sight, — 
We, of the wondrous art that gives it to our 
eyes ! 

William Allen Butler. 



LVII. 

O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 

Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 

With forest branches and the trodden weed ; 

Thou, silent form ! dost tease us out of thought 
As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral ! 

When old age shall this generation waste, 

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou 
sayest, 
" Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

Keats. 
{Ode on a Grecian Urn.) 



foments toitl) &rt. 59 

L VIII. 

MICHAEL ANGELO'S STUDIO. 

(He is at work on the Cartoon of the Last Judgment.) 

Michael Angelo. 

Why did the Pope and his ten Cardinals 
Come here to lay this heavy task upon me ? 
Were not the paintings on the Sistine ceiling 
Enough' for them ? They saw the Hebrew 

leader 
Waiting, and clutching his tempestuous beard, 
But heeded not. The bones of Julius 
Shook in their sepulchre. I heard the sound ; 
They only heard the sound of their own voices. 

In happy hours, when the imagination 
Wakes like a wind at midnight, and the soul 
Trembles in all its leaves, it is a joy 
To be uplifted on its wings, and listen 
To the prophetic voices in the air 
That call us onward. Then the work we do 
Is a delight, and the obedient hand 
Never grows weary. But how different is it 
In the disconsolate, discouraged hours, 
When all the wisdom of the world appears 
As trivial as the gossip of a nurse 
In a sick-room, and all our work seems useless. 
What is it guides my hand, what thoughts pos- 
sess me, 
That I have drawn her face among the angels, 
Where she will be hereafter ? O sweet dreams, 



6o iloments toitl) Strt, 



That through the vacant chambers of my heart 
Walk in the silence, as familiar phantoms 
Frequent an ancient house, what will ye with me ? 
Henry W. Longfellow. 



LIX. 
THE ARTIST. 

Nothing the greatest artist can conceive 
That every marble block doth not confine 
Within itself ; and only its design 
The hand that follows intellect can achieve. 

The ill I flee, the good that I believe, 
In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine, 
Thus hidden lie ; and so that death be mine, 
Art, of desired success, doth me bereave. 

Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face, 
Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain, 
Of my disgrace, nor chance nor destiny, 

If in thy heart both death and love find place 
At the same time, and if my humble brain, 
Burning, can nothing draw but death from 
thee. 
Michael Angelo. (7V. by H. W. Longfellow.) 



LX. 

Art faculty is innate : it cannot be acquired. 
It is a moral and intellectual force which may 
be enhanced by cultivation, but cannot by any 
such means be created. 

Seymour Haden. 



foments tott!) &xt. 61 



LXI. 
THE CHRIST. 
(Suggested by the Pictures of Tissot.) 
Yet look we for another — who shall paint 

The Christ of wide creation's growing claim, 
The hope on earth for sinner and for saint, 
Conceived of shifting ages, yet the same ? 

Shall art prevail till visible endure 

The self-avenging God, the shepherd's star — 
The rod and staff that lead through death se- 
cure, 
The faith of childhood, manhood's drifting 
spar ? 

Stupendous task ! Unto each soul remains, 
Soft halo'd as befits a spirit guest, 

The Christ, whose hand struck off his captive 
chains, 
The hidden Daysman of each human breast : 

The magdalen, the mother, and the nun, 

The fisherman of tossing Galilee, 
The Puritan, the leper, and the son 

Of modern stress in his complexity. 

One knew him walking on the waves, and one 
Loved him the Sabbath morning 'mid the 
corn; 
Another feasting; some when he had done 
Strange healing — few as prophet of the 
thorn. 



62 foments totti) Strt. 



Wild hearts have met him in the wilderness; 

And more close by, within the city wall, 
Have touched the garment that perchance may 
bless — 

No fleshly image satisfies us all. 

Though quick with love the painted form may 
be, 
" Such, Lord, was never mine," we cry. Oh, 
then, 
Look on the face of friend or foe and see 
God's masterpiece, — the deathless Christ in 

men! 

Martha Gilbert Dickinson. 



LXII. 

EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS. 

(A Picture by Leighton.) 

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the 

brow ! 
Let them once more absorb me ! One look now 

Will lap me round forever, not to pass 
Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond : 
Hold me but safe again within the bond 

Of one immortal look ! All woe that was, 
Forgotten, and all terror that may be, 
Defied, — no past is mine, no future : look at 

me! 

Robert Browning. 



foments tott& Slrt. 63 

LXIII. 
SAINT CECILIA. 

A woman with a charmed hand 

To wake sweet music, — yea, a saint 

Whose home is in the mystic land, 
Where poets sing and painters paint. 

She wears a soft and Old World grace, 
Her eyes are large with revery; 

Her solemn organ fills the place 
With sounds that set the spirit free. 

The lily is her flower, and meek 
Her look is, as the flower's own; 

She hath no color in her cheek; 
One thinks of her as oft alone. 

Rubens once wrought her, playing there, 
And made her beautiful, yet missed 

The holiness, the pensive air 

Of one whose face high heaven has kissed. 

And Carlo Dolci tried, nor failed: 
Cecilia sits and plays, and seems 

A saint whose soul is unassailed, 
And yet the woman of our dreams ! 

Richard Burton. 

LXIV. 

Genius finds its own road and carries its own 
lamp. 

WlLLMOTT. 



64 foments toiti) &vt. 

LXV. 
UNTRAMMELLED ART. 

Poet-Painter — Thou whose throbbing lyre 

With melody is thrilled, 
Ye know but half how Inspiration's fire 

Is quenched and chilled 
In the dull stream Development, half mire ! 
O Painter fully-primed with dreams that fleet, 
Is thy flat Canvas not a winding-sheet 

Placed on a Stretcher for thy vision's 

corse ? 
A pen but cramps thee, Pegasus, my horse ; 
And five-lined Paper frights the Ethereal Quire. 

1 've only known from first to last, 

A single Painter I could love ; 
For he had realized the Vast 
Eternal Truth proclaimed above: 
In him Conception towered sublime 

And Inspiration blazed intense. 
Oh, many, many is the time 
He 's told me so in confidence. 

I 've seen him, with a trembling light 

Of Inspiration in his hair, 

Before a Canvas purely white 

Ecstatically sit and glare : 

He daubed no stultifying Paint 

Upon the pure unsullied Sheet; 
Yet when he rose (a little faint) 
The noble Picture was complete ! 



foments tottl) %LvL 6$ 



His vibrant soul had breathed the scene 

Into the cloth in perfect wise ; 
No marring Brush had come between 
To limit and to vulgarize : 

All subtleties of Line and Curve, 

Of Tint and Tone, stood fixt and fair, 
Though Vulgar Minds did not observe 
That there was any Picture there. 



The Critics — pure Perception — stand 

In speechless Rapture for a time, 
Then murmurously sigh, " How Grand ! " 

" What perfect Handling ! " " Too Sublime ! " 



But no Description can convey 

What Beauty in his Canvas lurks — 

I '11 show you, when you come my way, 
A fine Collection of his works. 

James F. Sullivan. 

LXVI. 
TO VITTORIA COLONNA. 

Lady, how can it chance — yet this we see 
In long experience — that will longer last 
A living image carved from quarries vast 
Than its own maker, who dies presently? 

Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, 
And even Nature is by Art surpassed ; 
This know I, who to Art have given the past, 
But see that Time is breaking faith with me. 
5 



66 Jftomentfl toiti) &vt 



Perhaps on both of us long life can I 
Either in color or in stone bestow, 
By now portraying each in look and mien ; 
So that a thousand years after we die, 

How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe, 
And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen. 
Michael Angelo. 
( Tr. by H. W. Longfellow.) 



LXVII. 

Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its 
technicalities, difficulties, and particular ends, 
is nothing but a noble and expressive language, 
invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself 
nothing. He who has learned what is commonly 
considered the whole art of painting, that is, the 
art of representing any natural object faithfully, 
has as yet only learned the language by which his 
thoughts are to be expressed. He has done 
just as much towards being that which we 
ought to respect as a great painter, as a man 
who has learned to express himself grammati- 
cally and melodiously has towards being a great 

poet. 

John Ruskin. 

LXVIII. 

A flattering painter, who made it his care 
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they 

are. 

Goldsmith. 



JHomente tottb %LvU 67 

LXIX. 

OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE. 

I. 

The morn when first it thunders in March, 

The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say. 
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch 

Of the villa-gate this warm March day, 
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 

In the valley beneath where, white and wide 
And washed by the morning water-gold, 

Florence lay out on the mountain-side. 

II. 

River and bridge and street and square 

Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 
Through the live translucent bath of air, 

As the sights in a magic crystal-ball. 
And of all I saw and of all I praised, 

The most to praise and the best to see 
Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised : 

But why did it more than startle me ? 

in. 
Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, 

Could you play me false who loved you so ? 
Some slights if a certain heart endures 

Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know ! 
I' faith, I perceive not why I should care, 

To break a silence that suits them best, 
But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear 

When I find a Giotto join the rest. 



68 iftomentfii toify &rt. 



IV. 

On the arch where olives overhead 

Print the blue sky with twig and leaf 
(That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed), 

'Twixt the aloes, I used to learn in chief, 
And mark through the winter afternoons, 

By a gift God grants me now and then, 
In the mild decline of those suns like moons, 

Who walked in Florence, besides her men. 



They might chirp and chaffer, come and go 

For pleasure or profit, her men alive — 
My business was hardly with them, I trow, 

But with empty cells of the human hive ; 
— With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, 

The church's apsis, aisle or nave, 
Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, 

Its face set full for the sun to shave. 



VI. 

Wherever a fresco peels and drops, 

Wherever an outline weakens and wanes 
Till the latest life in the painting stops, 

Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick 
pains : 
One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, 

Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, 
— A lion who dies of an ass's kick, 

The wronged great soul of an ancient Master. 



;tfflmnent0 )nitt> &rt. 69 



VII. 

For oh, this world and the wrong it does ! 

They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, 
The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz 

Round the works of, you of the little wit ! 
Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, 

Now that they see God face to face, 
And have all attained to be poets, I hope? 

'T is their holiday now, in any case. 



VIII. 

Much they reck of your praise and you ! 

But the wronged great souls — can they be 
quit 
Of a world where their work is all to do, 

Where you style them, you of the little wit, 
Old Master This and Early the Other, 

Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows : 
A younger succeeds to an elder brother, 

Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos. 

IX. 

And here where your praise might yield returns, 

And a handsome word or two give help, 
Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns, 

And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. 
What, not a word for Stefano there, 

Of brow once prominent and starry, 
Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair 

For his peerless painting ? (see Vasari.) 



70 foments toitl) &rt. 



x. 

There stands the Master. Study, my friends, 

What a man's work comes to ! So he plans it, 
Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 

For the toiling and moiling, and then, sic 
transit ! 
Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor, 

With upturned eye while the hand is busy, 
Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neigh- 
bor ! 

'T is looking downward makes one dizzy. 



XI. 

" If you knew their work you would deal your 
dole." 
May I take upon me to instruct you ? 
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, 

Thus much had the world to boast in fructu — 
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, 

Which the actual generations garble, 
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs be- 
token) 
And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in 
marble. 

XII. 

So, you saw yourself as you wished you were, 
As you might have been, as you cannot be ; 

Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there : 
And grew content in your poor degree 



foments tottl) QvL ji 



With your little power, by those statues' god- 
head, 

And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, 
And your little grace, by their grace embodied, 

And your little date, by their forms that stay. 

XIII. 

You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am ? 

Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. 
You would prove a model ? The Son of Priam 

Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 
You 're wroth — can you slay your snake like 
Apollo ? 

You 're grieved — still Niobe 's the grander ! 
You live — there's the Racers' frieze to follow : 

You die — there 's the dying Alexander. 

XIV. 

So, testing your weakness by their strength, 

Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, 
Measured by Art in your breadth and length, 

You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty. 
— When I say "you," 'tis the common soul, 

The collective, I mean : the race of Man 
That receives life in parts to live in a whole, 

And grow here according to God's clear plan. 

xv. 

Growth came when, looking your last on them 
all, 
You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day 



72 JHomtnts tott!) %LxU 



And cried with a start — What if we so small 
Be greater and grander the while than they? 

Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? 
In both, of such lower types are we 

Precisely because of our wider nature ; 
For time, theirs — ours, for eternity. 

XVI. 

To-day's brief passion limits their range ; 

It seethes with the morrow for us and more. 
They are perfect — how else ? they shall never 
change : 
We are faulty — why not? we have time in 
store. 
The Artificer's hand is not arrested 

With us ; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished. 
They stand for our copy, and, once invested 
With all they can teach, we shall see them 
abolished. 

XVII. 

'T is a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — 

The better ! What 's come to perfection 
perishes. 
Things learned on earth, we shall practise in 
heaven : 

Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. 
Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto ! 

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, 
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not ?) " O " 

Thy great Campanile is still to finish. 



JHomentg tottfc &rt. 73 



XVIII. 

Is it true that we are now, and shall be here- 
after, 

But what and where depend on life's minute? 
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter 

Our first step out of the gulf or in it ? 
Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, 

Man's face, have no more play and action 
Than joy which is crystallized forever, 

Or grief, an eternal petrifaction? 



XIX. 

On which I conclude, that the early painters, 

To cries of " Greek Art and what more wish 
you ? " — 
Replied, " To become now self-acquainters, 

And paint man, man, whatever the issue ! 
Make new hopes shine through the flesh they 
fray, 

New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters : 
To bring the invisible full into play, 

Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ? " 



xx. 

Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and 
glory 

For daring so much, before they well did it. 
The first of the new, in our race's story, 

Beats the last of the old ; 't is no idle quiddit. 



74 foments tottl) &VU 



The worthies began a revolution, 

Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, 
Why, honor them now ! (ends my allocution) 

Nor confer your degree when the folks leave 
college. 



XXI. 

There 's a fancy some lean to and others hate — 

That, when this life is ended, begins 
New work for the soul in another state, 

Where it strives and gets weary, loses and 
wins : 
Where the strong and the weak, this world's 
congeries, 

Repeat in large what they practised in small, 
Through life after life in unlimited series ; 

Only the scale 's to be changed, that 's all. 



XXII. 

Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen 

By the means of Evil that Good is best, 
And, through earth and its noise, what is 
heaven's serene, — 

When our faith in the same has stood the 
test — 
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, 

The uses of labor are surely done ; 
There remaineth a rest for the people of God : 

And I have had troubles enough, for one. 



foments toitl) %LxU 75 



XXIII. 

But at any rate I have loved the season 

Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy; 
My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, 

My painter — who but Cimabue ? 
Nor even was man of them all indeed, 

From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, 
Could say that he missed my critic-meed. 

So, now to my special grievance — heigh-ho ! 



XXIV. 

Their ghosts still stand, as I said before, 

Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, 
Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er : 

— No getting again what the Church has 
grasped ! 
The works on the wall must take their chance ; 

"Works never conceded to England's thick 
clime ! " 
(I hope they prefer their inheritance 

Of a bucketful of Italian quicklime.) 



xxv. 

When they go at length, with such a shaking 

Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly 
Each master his way through the black streets 
taking, 
Where many a lost work breathes though 
badly — 



76 foments toitl) %xt> 



Why don't they bethink them of who has 
merited ? 

Why not reveal, while their pictures dree 
Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted? 

Why is it they never remember me ? 



XXVI. 

Not that I expect the great Bigordi, 

Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose ; 
Nor the wronged Lippino ; and not a word I 

Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's: 
But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 

To grant me a taste of your intonaco, 
Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad 
eye? 

Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco ? 



XXVII. 

Could not the ghost with the close red cap, 

My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman, 
Save me a sample, give me the hap 

Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughts- 
man ? 
No Virgin by him the somewhat petty, 

Of finical touch and tempera crumbly — 
Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 

Contribute so much, I ask him humbly ? 



JHomcntd toitl) &rt. 77 



XXVIII. 

Margheritone of Arezzo, 

With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling 
barret 
(Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so, 

You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot ?) 
Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, 

Where in the foreground kneels the donor? 
If such remain, as is my conviction, 

The hoarding it does you but little honor. 

XXIX. 

They pass ; for them the panels may thrill, 

The tempera grow alive and tinglish : 
Their pictures are left to the mercies still 

Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English, 
Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize, 

Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno 
At naked High Art, and in ecstasies 

Before some clay-cold vile Carlino ! 

XXX. 

No matter for these ! But, Giotto, you, 

Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble 
it — 
Oh, never ! it shall not be counted true — 

That a certain precious little tablet 
Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover, 

Was buried so long in oblivion's womb 
And, left for another than I to discover, 

Turns up at last ! and to whom ? — to whom ? 



78 foments toitj) &tt 



XXXI. 

I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito, 

(Or was it rather the Ognissanti?) 
Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe ! 

Nay, I shall have it yet ! Detur amantif 
My Koh-i-noor — or (if that 's a platitude) 

Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Soli's eye; 
So, in anticipative gratitude, 

What if I take up my hope and prophesy? 



XXXII. 

When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard 

Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing, 
To the worst side of the Mont St. Gothard, 

We shall begin by way of rejoicing; 
None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge), 

Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer, 
Hunting Radetzky's soul like a partridge 

Over Morello with squib and cracker. 



XXXIII. 

This time we '11 shoot better game and bag 'em 
hot: 

No mere display at the stone of Dante, 
But a kind of sober Witanagemot 

(Ex : " Casa Guidi," qrwd videas ante) 
Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence, 

How Art may return that departed with her. 
Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine's, 

And bring us the days of Orgagna hither ! 



foments toitl) &rt. 79 



XXXIV. 

How we shall prologuize, how we shall perorate, 

Utter fit things upon art and history, 
Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero 
rate, 

Make of the want of the age no mystery ; 
Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras, 

Show — monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks 
Out of the bear's shape into Chimaera's, 

While Pure Art's birth is still the republic's I 



XXXV. 

Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tus- 
can, 

Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an " issi- 
mo "), 
To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, 

And turn the bell-tower's alt to altissimo ; 
And, fine as the beak of a young beccaccia, 

The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, 
Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, 

Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy. 



xxxvi. 

Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold 
Is broken away, and the long-pent fire, 

Like the golden hope of the world, unbafiied 
Springs from its sleep, and up goes the 
spire, 



8o ^omenta toitl) 8tt. 



While, " God and the People " plain for its 
motto, 
Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky ? 
At least to foresee that glory of Giotto 
And Florence together, the first am I ! 

Robert Browning. 

LXX. 
AFTER RUYSDAEL. 
Through briery ways, from underneath 

The far-off sadness of the gold 
That fades above the sun, the waves 
Swift to our very feet are rolled. 

Above ? beyond, to either side, 

The sombre woods bend overhead; 

And underneath, the wild brown waves 
Leap joyously, with lightsome tread, 

From rock to rock, and laugh and sing, 
Like lonely maids in woods at play ; 

Till in the cold, still pool below, 

A-sudden checked, they stand at bay, 

Like girls who, in their mood of joy, 
To this more solemn woodland glide, 

And with some brief, sweet terror touched, 
Stand wistful, trembling, tender-eyed. 

What half-felt sense of something gone, 
What sadness in the moveless woods ; 

What sorrow haunts yon amber sky, 
That over all so darkly broods ! 

S. Weir Mitchell. 



Jlomcnts! tottb &tt. 81 

STUDENTS' DAY IN THE NATIONAL 
GALLERY. 

Out of all the hundred fair Madonnas 
Seen in many a rich and distant city — 
Sweet Madonnas, with the mother's bosoms; 
Sad Madonnas, with the eyes of anguish; 
Rapt Madonnas, caught in clouds to heaven 
(Clouds of golden, glad, adoring Angels) — 
She of Florence, in the chair, — so perfect! 
She that was the " Grand Duke's " wealth and 

glory, 
She that makes the picture "of the Goldfinch," 
Ghirlandajo's, with the cloak and jewels ; 
Guido's Queen, whom men and angels worship, 
Delia Robbia's best ; and that sweet " Perla " — 
Seville's bright boast — Mary of Murillo 
(Painted — so they vow — "with milk and 

roses "), 
Guido Reni's Quadro at Bologna, 
Munich's masterpiece, grim Diirer's Goddess; 
Yes ! and thy brave work — Beltraffio mio ! — 
Many as the lessons are I owe them, 
Thanks and wonder; worship; grateful mem- 
ories, 
Oftenest I shall think of Perugino's. 

Do you know it ? Either side a triptych 
Stands an armed Archangel — as to guard her — 
Glorious — with great wings, and shining armor : 
In the middle panel, pure and tender, 
Clasping close her hands, with adoration 
6 



82 ^omenta toitl) &xt 



(All the Mother's love — the Mortal's worship — 
In their yearning, in their reverence, painted), 
Gazes Mary on the Child. A seraph 
Holds Him, smiling, at her knees; and, smiling, 
Looks she down, with spirit humbly-happy, 
Full — to heart's brim — of the Peace of 

Heaven. 
Reverence mingles with the Mother's passion, 
But no touch of sadness, or of doubting. 
Far away a river runneth seaward 
(Little now — like Truth — like Truth, to 

widen), 
Leads the light across a blue dim country, 
Under peaks — by forests — to the ocean : 
Soft and warm, a pearly sky broods over 
Where three Winged-Ones, at the Father's foot- 
stool, 
Sing the " peace and good-will " song to mortals. 

If you ask me why that Perugino 
Of the rest can never be forgotten, 
Let this serve : I learned a lesson by it, 
Watching one whose light and faithful fingers — 
Following touch by touch her lovely labor — 
Caught the Master's trick, and made him 

modern. 
While she bent above her new Madonna, 
Laid the splendid smalts, and touched the crim- 
sons, 
Swept the shadows under the gilt tresses, 
Smoothed the sinless brows, and drooped the 
eyelids, — 



foments toit& &tt. 83 



What the Master did, so also doing, — 
I bethought me, " True and good the toil is ! 
Noble thus to double gifts of beauty ! 
Yet, alas ! this 'peace and good-will' anthem, — 
If the dear Madonna knew what ages — 
Slowly following ages — would creep o'er us, 
And those words be still as wind that passes, 
Breathing fragrance from a land we know not, — ■ 
Sighing music to a tune we catch not, 
Stirring hearts, as leaves, i' the night, a little 
Shake, and sleep again, and wait for sunlight 
(Sweet, glad sunlight ! oh, so long a-coming !), 
Would she smile so ? I had painted rather 
(While she listened to those singing Angels) — 
Mary, with a sword-blade in her bosom 
(Sword that was to pierce her heart, of all 

hearts !) ; 
I had shown her with deep eyes of trouble, 
Half afraid to credit that Evangel ; 
I had limned her ' pondering all those sayings,' 
All our later agonies foreseeing, 
After all our years have ' heard the tidings.' " 

But the Artist, painting bold and largely, 
Washing soft and clear the broadening colors; 
With a liberal brush, at skilful working, 
Linking lights and shadows on the visage, 
Dropped by hazard there, one drop of water / 
" Lo, a tear ! " I thought ; " that teaches Pie- 

tro! 
That is wiser than the Master's wisdom ! 
Now the picture's meaning will be perfect ! 



84 foments toitl) &rt. 



For she could not be so calm — Christ's 

Mother — 
Could she ? even though Archangels kept 

her! 
Could she ? even though those sang in Heaven! 
Knowing how her world would roll beyond 

them, 
Twenty centuries past this sacred moment, 
Out of sound of this angelic singing; 
Loaded with the wrongs Christ's justice rights 

not, 
Reddened with the blood Christ's teachings 

stanch not, 
Reeking with the tears Christ's pity stays not : 
Let the tear shine there ! it suits the story ! 
Tear and smile go wondrous well together ! 
Seeing that this song was sung by Angels; 
Seeing that the foolish world gainsays it. 
That one lustrous drop completes the picture ! 
You forgot it ! Peter of Perugia ! " 



Ah ! I did not know an Artist's wisdom ! 
I had still to learn my deepest lesson : 
She I watched, with better thought inspired, 
Took some tender color in her pencil 
(Faint dawn-color, — blush of rose, — I marked 

not!), 
Touched the tear, and melted it to brightness, 
Spread it in a heavenly smile all over, 
Magically made it turn to service ; 
Till that tear, charged with its rosy tintings, 



foments tottl) %LvU 85 



Deepened the first sweet smile, and left it love- 
lier, — 
Like the Master's work, complete, sufficient ! 

Then I thought : " Pietro's wise Madonna 
Was too wise to weep at little sorrows ! 
Christ, and She, and Heaven, and all the angels 
Last ; — 't is sin, and grief, alone which passes ! 
Roses grow of dew, and smiles from weeping ! 
Sweetest smile is made of saddest tear-drop ! 
She hath not forgotten we shall suffer ! 
In her heart that sword — to the heft — is 

planted, 
But beyond the years, she sees Time over ; 
Past the Calvary she counts ' the mansions.' 
Dear Madonna ! — wise to be so happy ! 
Should you weep, because we have not listened? 
We shall listen ! and His Mother knows it ! " 

This is why — of many rare Madonnas — 
Most of all I think on Perugino's ; 
I who know so many more and love them! 
This is why I thank my gentle artist, 
She who taught me that, a student's wisdom ! 

Sir Edwin Arnold. 

LXXII. 

Genius is always a surprise, but it is born 
with great advantages when the stock from 
which it springs has been long under cultiva- 
tion. 

O. W. Holmes. 



86 foments toitfc %lxU 

L XXII I. 

A MADONNA OF DAGNAN-BOUVERET. 

I. 

Oh, brooding thought of dread ! 
Oh, calm of coming grief ! 
Oh, mist of tears unshed 
Above that shining head. 
That for an hour too brief 
Lies on thy nurturing knee ! 
How shall we pity thee, 
Mother of sorrows — sorrows yet to be ! 

II. 

That babyhood unknown, 
With all of bright or fair 
That lingers in our own, 
By every hearth has shone. 
Each year that light we share 
As Bethlehem saw it shine. 
Be ours the comfort thine, 
Mother of consolations all divine ! 

Robert Underwood Johnson. 
(By permission from " The Winter Hotir, and Other 
Poems," N. K, The Century Co.) 



LXXIV. 

But who can paint 
Like Nature ? Can imagination boast, 
Amid its gay creations, hues like hers ? 

James Thomson. 



foments toit& &xt S7 

LXXV. 
IN AN ARTIST'S STUDIO. 

One face looks out from all his canvases, 

One self-same figure sits or walks or leans ; 

We found her hidden just behind those 
screens, 
That mirror gave back all her loveliness. 
A queen in opal or in ruby dress, 

A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, 

A saint, an angel — every canvas means 
The same one meaning, neither more nor less. 
He feeds upon her face by day and night, 

And she with true, kind eyes looks back on 
him, 
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light : 

Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim ; 
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; 

Not as she is, but as she fills his dream. 

Christina Rossetti. 

LXXV I. 

All men, completely harmonized and justly 
tempered, enjoy color; it is meant for the per- 
petual comfort and delight of the human heart; 
it is richly bestowed on the highest works of 
creation, and the eminent sign and seal of per- 
fection in them; being associated with life in 
the human body, with light in the sky, with 
purity and hardness in the earth, — death, night, 
and pollution of all kinds being colorless. 

John Ruskin. 



88 ^lomentfi toitf) &rt. 



L XX VI I. 
FOUR PICTURES BY BURNE-JONES. 

Fortune. 
Captains and kings are fastened to her wheel, 
Which turns and turns : while she, close-veiled 
and blind, 
Thrusts her lean arm athwart them : head 'neath 
heel, 
And heel on head, they gasp and groan, 

entwined, 
A wreath of woe no mercy may unbind : 
For God who all things made, to Fortune gives 
Power to subdue the mightiest man that lives. 

Fame. 
Fame stands and blows a trumpet. Chest and 
thigh, 
Strained with the blast, like knotted cordage 
quiver. 
Whence hath he flown ? From what empyrean 
sky 
Have those wings borne him, fiery-bright, that 

shiver 
Like burning towers reflected in a river ? 
Behold ! Behind him Fortune and her wheel 
Lie prone and shattered 'neath a naked heel. 

Oblivion. 
Thou too art strong and eagle-winged : but, oh ! 
How pale as death is yon broad bosom, bent 
Over the restless scythe, that to and fro 



Ptomentfi tott& &rt 89 



Sweeps, while the mower, on his task intent, 
Looks not to left or right Mangled and rent 

Are Fame's fair wings ; like Fortune's wheel, 
his horn 

Was but a plaything for Oblivion's scorn. 

Love. 

Ah, Love! And thou hast slain him? With 

what charm, 

Scattering rose-leaves on that stubborn scythe, 

Hast thou avenged the world of so much harm? 

Oblivion 'neath thy smile hath ceased to 

writhe. 
How wert thou bold, oh, tender-limbed and 
lithe — 
Mere rosy-pinioned stripling — to assail 
Him before whom Fame, Fortune's lord, must 

quail ? 

John Addington Symonds. 

L XXVI II. 

All great art is delicate art, and all coarse 
art is bad art. Nay, even to a certain extent, 
all bold art is bad art ; for boldness is not the 
proper word to apply to the courage and swift- 
ness of a great master, based on knowledge, and 

coupled with fear and love. 

John Ruskin. 

lxxix. 

Nothing right can be accomplished in art 

without enthusiasm. 

Schumann. 



90 foments tottl) &xt 



LXXX. 
AFTER WATTEAU. 

Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythere. 

Th. de Banville. 

" Embarquons-nous ! " I seem to go 

Against my will. 'Neath alleys low 
I bend, and hear across the air — 
Across the stream — faint music rare, — 

Whose " cornemuse" whose " chalumeau " f 

Hark ! was not that a laugh I know ? 
Who was it, hurrying, turned to show 
The galley swinging by the stair? — 
" Embarquons-nous ! " 

The silk sail flaps, fresh breezes blow ; 

Frail laces flutter, satins flow ; — 
You, with the love-knot in your hair, 
"A lions, embarquons pour Cythere /" 

You will not? . . . Press her, then, Pierrot! — 
" Embarquons-nous ' ' 



Austin Dobson. 



LXXXI. 



It is the treating of the common-place with 

the feeling of the sublime that gives to art its 

true power. 

J. F. Millet. 

LXXXII. 

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry speak- 
ing painting. 

SlMONIDES. 



Jftoments toitl) %lvt. 91 

LXXXIII. 
THE ROSE AND THE STATUE. 

The Rose said to the Statue : Thou art cold 
And passionless, though beautiful and grand. 
I all my life exhale, while thou dost stand 

Unmoved, unmindful of the sweets I hold. 

The Statue answered to the Rose : Thou poor, 
Frail creature, toy and wanton of a day, 
I scarce can stoop to note thy swift decay ; 

Lo ! thou art fading now, but / endure. 

Thus each reproached the other : neither thought 
What various means lead to an end the same; 
How manifold is beauty, and what claim 

To the world's gratitude the other brought. 

O Statue ! shine in majesty, replete 

With high suggestions of eternal things. 
O Rose ! yield up thy breath and die ; the 
wings 

Of love receive it, for thy breath is sweet. 

One must be cold and suffer, — 'tis earth's 
blight; 
One must be warm and suffer. Thus the 

poles 
Touch in a law unchanging; but the souls 
Of Statue and of Rose can ne'er unite. 

Owen Innsly. 
{Lucy W. Jennison.) 



92 foments toity %LxU 



L XXXIV. 

THE CRADLE TOMB IN WESTMINSTER 
ABBEY.i 

A little, rudely sculptured bed, 

With shadowing folds of marble lace, 

And quilt of marble, primly spread 
And folded round a baby's face. 

Smoothly the mimic coverlet, 

With royal blazonries bedight, 
Hangs, as by tender fingers set 

And straightened for the last good-night. 

And traced upon the pillowing stone 

A dent is seen, as if to bless 
The quiet sleep some grieving one 

Had leaned, and left a soft impress. 

It seems no more than yesterday 
Since the sad mother down the stair 

And down the long aisle stole away, 
And left her darling sleeping there. 

And dust upon the cradle lies, 

And those who prized the baby so, 

And laid her down to rest with sighs, 
Were turned to dust long years ago. 

Above the peaceful pillowed head 

Three centuries brood, and strangers peep 



1 A copy of this poem was made by Dean Stanley, and 
hangs in a frame close by the " Cradle tomb." 



JHoments toitl) &rt. 93 



And wonder at the carven bed, — 
But not unwept the baby's sleep, 

For wistful mother-eyes are blurred 
With sudden mists, as lingerers stay, 

And the old dusts are roused and stirred 
By the warm tear-drops of to-day. 

Soft, furtive hands caress the stone, 
And hearts, o'erleaping place and age, 

Melt into memories, and own 
A thrill of common parentage. 

Men die, but sorrow never dies; 

The crowding years divide in vain, 
And the wide world is knit with ties 

Of common brotherhood in pain ; 

Of common share in grief and loss, 

And heritage in the immortal bloom 
Of Love, which, flowering round its cross, 
Made beautiful a baby's tomb. 

Susan Coolidge. 
{Copyright, 1880, by Roberts Brothers.) 

LXXXV. 

Angelico is perpetual peace. Not seclusion 
from the world. No shutting out of the world 
is needful for him. ... In Angelico you have 
the entirely spiritual mind, wholly versed in the 
heavenly world, and incapable of conceiving any 
wickedness or vileness whatsoever. 

John Ruskin. 



94 JHomentfi toitb %LxU 

L XXXVI. 

IN AN ATELIER. 

I pray you do not turn your head ; 
And let your hands lie folded, so. 
It was a dress like this, wine-red, 
That Dante liked so, years ago. 
You don't know Dante ? Never mind. 
He loved a lady wondrous fair — 
His model? Something of the kind. 
I wonder if she had your hair ! 

I wonder if she looked so meek, 
And was not meek at all (my dear, 
I want that side light on your cheek). 
He loved her, it is very clear, 
And painted her, as I paint you, 
But rather better, on the whole 
(Depress your chin ; yes, that will do) : 
He was a painter of the soul ! 

(And painted portraits, too, I think, 
In the Inferno — devilish good ! 
I 'd make some certain critics blink 
If I 'd his method and his mood.) 
Her name was (Fanny, let your glance 
Rest there, by that majolica tray) — 
Was Beatrice ; they met by chance — ■ 
They met by chance, the usual way. 

(As you and I met, months ago. 
Do you remember ? How your feet 
Went crinkle-crinkle on the snow 
Along the bleak gas-lighted street ! 



JHomcnts toitf) &rt. 95 



An instant in the drug-store's glare 
You stood as in a golden frame, 
And then I swore it, then and there, 
To hand your sweetness down to fame.) 

They met, and loved, and never wed 
(All this was long before our time), 
And though they died, they are not dead — 
Such endless youth gives mortal rhyme ! 
Still walks the earth, with haughty mien, 
Great Dante, in his soul's distress ; 
And still the lovely Florentine 
Goes lovely in her wine-red dress. 

You do not understand at all ? 

He was a poet; on his page 

He drew her ; and, though kingdoms fall, 

This lady lives from age to age : 

A poet — that means painter too, 

For words are colors, rightly laid ; 

And they outlast our brightest hue, 

For varnish cracks and crimsons fade. 

The poets — they are lucky ones ! 

When we are thrust upon the shelves, 

Our works turn into skeletons 

Almost as quickly as ourselves ; 

For our poor canvas peels at length, 

At length is prized — when all is bare : 

" What grace ! " the critics cry, " what 

strength ! " 
When neither strength nor grace is there. 



g6 ^laments toitl) %Lxt. 



Ah, Fanny, I am sick at heart, 
It is so little one can do ; 
We talk our jargon — live for Art ! 
I 'd much prefer to live for you. 
How dull and lifeless colors are ! 
You smile, and all my picture lies : 
I wish that I could crush a star, 
To make a pigment for your eyes. 

Yes, child, I know I 'm out of tune ; 
The light is bad ; the sky is gray : 
I paint no more this afternoon, 
So lay your royal gear away. 
Besides, you're moody — chin on hand — 
I know not what — not in the vein — 
Not like Anne Bullen, sweet and bland : 
You sit there smiling in disdain. 

Not like Bluff Harry's radiant Queen, 

Unconscious of the coming woe, 

But rather as she might have been, 

Preparing for the headsman's blow. 

I see ! I 've put you in a miff — 

Sitting bolt-upright, wrist on wrist. 

How sliould you look ? Why, dear, as if — 

Somehow — as if you 'd just been kissed ! 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 

LXXXVII. 

Genius counts all its miracles poor and short. 

Emerson. 



foments toitf) &vU 97 



L XXXV I II. 

There is nothing that a real artist cares less 
for than what you call success. It is generally 
a misfortune if he gets it early, and if it comes 
to him late he is indifferent to it. . . . Neglect 
and indifference mean freedom from tempta- 
tion, long quiet days in one's studio, hard work, 
sound sleep, and healthy growth. It was a 
great piece of luck for Corot that the world was 
so long in finding him ; that it left him so many 
years in peace to do his work and let his soul 
out. His contempt for popularity was well ex- 
pressed in the phrase, " Men are like flies ; if 
one alights on a dish, others will follow." 

H. W. Mabie. 

LXXXIX. 

Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, 
He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland: 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
When they judg'd without skill, he was still 

hard of hearing: 
When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, 

and stuff, 
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. 1 

Goldsmith. 

1 Sir Joshua was so remarkably deaf as to be under the 
necessity of using an ear-trumpet in company. 



98 foments toitb 3trt. 



xc. 

VITTORIA. 

Wise was the word the wise man spake who 

said : 
" Angelo was the only man to whom God gave 
Four souls " : — the soul of sculpture and of song, 
Of architecture and of art ; these all. 
For so God loved him as if he were 
His only child, and grouped about his brows 
Ideals of himself, — not angels mild 
As those that flit and beckon other lives, 
But cherubim and seraphim ; tall, strong, 
Unsleeping, terrible ; with wings across 
Their mighty feet, and eyes — if we would look 
Upon their blazing eyes, these two are hid — 
Some angels are all wings ! Oh, shine and fly ! 
Were ye not angels, ye would strike us blind. 

And yet they did not, could not dazzle her — 
That one sweet, silent woman unto whom 
He bent as pliant as the marble turned 
To life immortal in his own great hand. 
Steadfast Vittoria looked on Angelo. 
She lifted lonely eyes. The years stepped slow. 
Fourfold the reverence which he gave to her. 
Fourfold the awful tenderness, the trust, 
The loyalty, the loss. And oh, fourfold 
The comfort, beyond all power of comforting, 
Whereby a lesser man may heal the hurt 
Of widowhood. 

Pescara had one soul — 
A little one; and it was stained. And he — 



foments tottl) %LvU 99 



It too, perhaps (God knows !) — was dead. 
The dead are God's. 

Vittoria had one heart. 
The woman gave it, and the woman gives 
Once. Angelo was too late. And one who 

dared 
To shed a tear for him has dropped it here. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. 



XCI. 
THE LAST SUPPER. 

(By Leonardo da Vinci in the Refectory of the Convent 
of Maria della Grazia, Milan.) 

Though searching damps and many an envious 

flaw 
Have marred this work ; the calm, ethereal 

grace, 
The love deep-seated in the Saviour's face, 
The mercy, goodness, have not failed to awe 
The Elements ; as they do melt and thaw 
The heart of the beholder, — and erase 
(At least for one rapt moment) every trace 
Of disobedience to the primal law. 
The annunciation of the dreadful truth 
Made to the Twelve, survives : lip, forehead, 

cheek, 
And hand reposing on the board in ruth 
Of what it utters, while the unguilty seek 
Unquestionable meanings, still bespeak 
A labor worthy of eternal youth ! 

William Wordsworth. 



ioo foments: toitl) %LxU 

XCII. 

MILLET AND ZOLA. 

(" L'Angelus " and " La Terre.") 

Against the sunset glow they stand, 
Two humblest toilers of the land, 
Rugged of speech and rough of hand, 

Bowed down by tillage ; 
No grace of garb or circumstance 
Invests them with a high romance, 
Ten thousand such through fruitful France, 

In field and village. 

The day's slow .path from dawn to west 
Has left them, soil-bestained, distrest, 
No thought beyond the nightly rest, — 

New toil to-morrow ; 
Till solemnly the " Ave " bell 
Rings out the sun's departing knell, 
Borne by the breezes' rhythmic swell 

O'er swathe and furrow. 

O lowly pair ! you dream it not, 
Yet on your hard, unlovely lot 
That evening gleam of light has shot 

A glorious presage ; 
For prophets oft have yearned and kings, 
Have yearned in vain to know the things 
Which to your simple spirits brings 

That curfew message. 



foments tottf) %Lxt. 101 



Turn to the written page and read 
In other strain the peasant's creed, 
With satyr love and vampire greed 

How hearts are tainted ; 

Read to the end unmoved who can, 
Read how the primal curse on man 
May shape a fouler Caliban 

Than poet painted ! 

And this is Nature ! Be it so : 
It needs a master's hand to show 
How through the man the brute may grow 
By Hell's own leaven ; 

We blame you not : enough for us 
Those two lone figures bending thus, 
For whom that far-off Angelus 

Speaks Hope and Heaven. 
Robert, Lord Houghton. 



XCIII. 
All Arts are one, howe'er distributed they 

stand ; 
Verse, tone, shape, color, form, are fingers on 
one hand. 

W. W. Story. 

XCIV. 

Painting does not proceed so much by intelli- 
gence as by sight and feeling and invention. 

Hamerton. 



102 foments toitl) &rt» 

xcv. 

FRA ANGELICO. 

No, Buonarroti, thou shalt not subdue 

My mind with thy Thor-hammer ! All that play 

Of ponderous science with Titanic thew 

And spastic tendon — marvellous, 'tis true — 

Says nothing to my soul. Thy " terrible way " 

Has led enow of worshipers astray ; 

I will not walk therein ! Nor yet shalt thou, 

Majestic Raphael — though before thee bow 

The nations, with their tribute of renown — 

Lead my heart captive. Great thou art, I own — 

Great, but a Pagan still. But here — breathe 

low, 
The place is hallowed — here, Angelico ! 
Heart, mind, and soul, with reverent love confess 
The Christian Painter, sent to purify and bless. 
Sir Joseph Noel Paton. 

XCVI. 
ON DURER'S MELENCOLIA. 



What holds her fixed far eyes nor lets them 

range ? 
Not the strange sea, strange earth, or heav'n 



But her own phantom dwarfing these great 

three, 
More strange than all, more old than heav'n, 

earth, sea. 

William Watson. 



foments toitl) %Lxt 103 

XCVII. 
THE HOLY FAMILY, BY MICHELANGELO. 

(In the National Gallery.*) 

Turn not the prophet's page, O Son! He 
knew 

All that thou hast to suffer, and hath writ. 

Not yet thine hour of knowledge. Infinite 
The sorrows that thy manhood's lot must rue 
And dire acquaintance of thy grief. That clue 

The spirits of thy mournful ministerings 

Seek through yon scroll in silence. For 
these things 
The angels have desired to look into. 

Still before Eden waves the fiery sword, — 
Her Tree of Life unransomed : whose sad 

Tree 
Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary 
Must yield its Tempter, — Hell the earliest 
dead 
Of Earth resign, — and yet, O Son and Lord, 
The seed o' the woman bruise the serpent's 

head. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

XCVIII. 
Work for immortality if you will : then wait 
for it. 

J. G. Holland. 

1 In this picture the Virgin Mother is seen withholding from 
the Child Saviour the prophetic writings in which his sufferings 
are foretold. Angelic figures beside them examine a scroll. 



104 foments toitl) art. 

XCIX. 
LEPAGE'S JOAN OF ARC. 

Once, it may be, the soft gray skies were dear, 
The clouds above in crowds, like sheep below, 
The bending of each kindly wrinkled tree; 
Or blossoms at the birth-time of the year, 
Or lambs unweaned, or water in still flow, 
In whose brown glass a girl her face might 
see. 

Such days are gone, and strange things come 
instead ; 
For she has looked on other faces white, 
Pale bloom of fear, before war's whirlwind 
blown ; 
Has stooped, ah, Heaven! in some low shelter- 
ing shed 
To tend dark wounds, the leaping arrow's bite, 
While the cold death that hovered seemed 
her own. 

And in her hurt heart, o'er some grizzled head, 
The mother that shall never be has yearned ; 
And love's fine voice, she else shall never 
hear, 
Came to her as the call of saints long dead ; 
And straightway all the passion in her burned, 
One altar-flame that hourly waxes clear. 

Hence goes she ever in a glimmering dream, 
And very oft will sudden stand at gaze, 
With blue, dim eyes that still not seem to 
see: 



foments tottb &rt. 105 



For now the well-known ways with visions teem ; 
Unfelt is toil, and summer one green daze, 
Till that the king be crowned, and France 
be free ! 

Helen Gray Cone. 

C. 

AFTER ALBERT CUYP. 

A sunset silence holds the patient land ; 
Against the sun the stolid cattle stand ; 
Framed hazy, in the gold that slips 
Between the sails of lazy ships, 
And floods with level, yellow light 
The broad, green meadow grasses bright. 
S. Weir Mitchell. 

CI. 

... If it take 
jEons to form a diamond, grain on grain, 
/Eons to crystallize its fire and dew — 
By what slow processes must Nature make 
Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels ? Great 

the gain 
If she spoil thousands making one or two. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
{Rarity of Genius.) 



CII. 

True painting can only be learned in one 
school, and that is kept by Nature. 

Hogarth. 



106 JHomenta tottl) ftrt. 

c///. 

LINES TO A STUPID PICTURE. 

Five geese, — a landscape damp and wild, 
A stunted, not too pretty, child, 

Beneath a battered gingham ; 
Such things, to say the least, require 
A Muse of more-than-average Fire 

To adequately sing 'em. 



And yet — Why should they ? Souls of mark 
Have sprung from such ; — e'en Joan of Arc 

Had scarce a grander duty ; 
Not always ('t is a maxim trite) 
From righteous causes comes the right, — 

From beautiful the beauty. 

Who shall decide where seed is sown ? 
Maybe some priceless germ was blown 

To this unwholesome marish ; 
(And what must grow will still increase 
Though cackled round by half the geese 

And ganders in the parish.) 



Maybe this homely face may hide 
A Stael before whose mannish pride 

Our frailer sex may tremble ; 
Perchance this audience anserine 
May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine !) — 

May hiss — a future Kemble ! 



foments tottb 9Lrt. 107 



Or say the gingham shadows o'er 
An undeveloped Hannah More ! — 

A latent Mrs. Trimmer ! 
Who shall affirm it ? — who deny ? — 
Since of the truth nor you nor I 

Discern the faintest glimmer ? 

So then — Caps off, my Masters all: 
Reserve your final words, — recall 

Your all-too-hasty strictures ; 
Caps off, I say, for Wisdom sees 
Potential possibilities 

In most unhopeful pictures. 

Austin Dobson. 

CIV. 

If a picture is daubed with many glaring 
colors, the vulgar eye admires it; whereas he 
judges very contemptuously of some admirable 
design sketched out only with a black pencil, 
though by the hand of Raphael. 

Isaac Watts. 



CV. 

As when a painter, poring on a face, 
Divinely through all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 
The shape and colour of a mind and life, 
Lives for his children, ever at its best 
And fullest. 

Tennyson. 



108 JHoments toitl) &rt. 

CVI. 
THE PARTHENON BY MOONLIGHT. 

This is an island of the golden Past, 

Uplifted in the tranquil sea of night. 
This is true Athens ! How the heart beats fast 

When climbs the pilgrim to this gleaming 
height : 
The crown and glory of consummate form ; 

The jewel of all the world, most nobly set ; 
High Beauty's shrine, outwearing every storm ; 

Shattered, but not undone ; thrice lovely yet. 

Ah, Heaven, what tragic waste ! Is Time so 
lavish 

Of dear perfection, thus to see it spilled ? 
'Twas worth an empire ; now behold the ravish 

That laid it low. The soaring plain is filled 
With the wide-scattered letters of one word 

Of loveliness that nevermore was spoken ; 
Nor ever shall its like again be heard : 

Not dead is Art — but that high charm is 
broken. 

Now moonlight builds with swift and mystic art 

And makes the ruin whole — and yet not 
whole, 
But exquisite, though crushed and torn apart. 

Back to the temple steals its living soul : 
In the star-silent night it comes all pale — 

A spirit breathing beauty and delight, 
And yet how stricken ! Hark ! I hear it wail, 

Self-sorrowful, while every wound breathes 
white. 



foments toiti) &tt 109 



And though more sad than is the nightingale 
That mourns in Lycabettus' fragrant pine, 
That soul to mine brings solace ; nor shall fail 
To heal the heart of man while still doth 
shine 
Yon planet, doubly bright in this deep blue ; 
Yon moon that brims with fire these violet 
hills: 
For Beauty is of God, and God is true, 

And with His strength the soul of mortal fills. 
Richard Watson Gilder. 

CVII. 

My friend, all speech and humor is short- 
lived, foolish, untrue. Genuine work alone, 
what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal. 

Take courage, then — raise the arm — strike 

home and that right lustily — the citadel of 

Hope must yield to noble desire, thus seconded 

by noble efforts. 

John Ruskin. 

CVII 1. 

Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a 
deep, steadfast earnestness ; and on this account 
it unites so readily with religion. 

Goethe. 

CIX. 

Painting is the intermediate between a 
thought and a thing. 

Coleridge. 



no JHoments tottl) 8rt 

ex. 

RUSKIN. 

Painter in words, on whose resplendent page, 
Caught from the palette of the seven-hued 

bow, 
The colors of our English Turner glow, — 
Silver of silent stars, the storm's red rage, 
The spray of mountain streams, rocks gray with 
age, 
Gold of Athena, white of Alpine snow, 
Cool green of forests, blue of lakes below, 
And sunset-crimsoned skies, — O seer and 
sage, 
Crowned with wild olive, fine of sense and sight, 
In thy prophetic voice, through work, trade, 

strife, 
The stones cry out : " By truth the nations 
live, 
And by injustice die. Be thy weights right, 
Thy measures true. These be the lamps that 

give 
The way of beauty and the path of life." 

R. R. Bowker. 

CXI. 

ANY SCULPTOR TO ANY MODEL. 

I know not anything more fair than thou. — 
God give me strength to feel thee, power to speak 
Through this dumb clay and marble all the 

thoughts 
That rise within my spirit while I gaze ! — 



JHmnents tottfc &ri in 



What saith the Scripture ? 

Shaped man, and breathed into his nostrils 

breath 
Of life. — Here then, as nowhere else, shines 

God; 
The Thought made flesh, the world's soul 

breathing soft 
And strong, not merely through those lips and 

eyes, 
But in each flawless limb, each mighty curve, 
Each sinew moulded on the moving form. 
Until thou earnest, the world and all it held 
Was even as Memnon ere he felt the sun; 
Then Man stepped forth, the Spirit sprang to 

light, 
Earth found her voice, and heaven with music 

thrilled. 
Nought is there therefore in thee but is pure, 
Perfect, compact of correspondences, 
Whereby the poems of the soul are read 
In symbols fashioned from the plastic form. 
Yea, it is mine by Art, the hierophant 
Of myriads when these moving lips are dumb, 
To find thy meaning, and to speak it forth 
Through marble and through bronze that shall 

not fade ; 
Making thy moulded shape — not face alone, 
But hands, breast, lifted arms, firm limbs, that 

tell 
Of service, strength, will, conquest, energy — 
One message for the minds of those that know. 
John Addington Symonds. 



ii2 foments tott!) 8rt. 

CXII. 
MADONNA AND CHILD. 

Little Son, little Son, climb up to my breast, 

And lie amid its warmth at rest. 
But shut those stranger eyes from me, 

My Rose, my Sorrow, my Peace divine, 
And call me " Mother," and not " Mary," 

Although thou art not mine. 

weep not if I hold thee tight, 
For 'mid unheeding kine at night 

1 dream thee weak and needing me, 
Forget thy royalty, croon and coo, 

Pretend thee little, and handle thee 
As other mothers do. 

Thine eyes are closed, but He who keeps 

Watch over Israel never sleeps! 
And when I sleepless lie by thee 

Thy little hands mine eyes do blind 
And move across them soothingly, 

And feel so large and kind. 

It is I would climb to thy little breast. 

O hold me there and let me rest ! 
It is I am weak and weary and small, 

And thy soft arms can carry me. 
So put them under me, God, my All, 

And let me quiet be. 

Alice Archer James. 



JHnmcntd tottl) &rt. 113 

CXIII. 
ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE, BY GIOTTO. 

Can this be thou who, lean and pale, 

With such immitigable eye 
Didst look upon those writhing souls in bale, 

And note each vengeance, and pass by 
Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance 
Cast backward one forbidden glance, 

And saw Francesca, with child's glee, 

Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee 
And with proud hands control its fiery prance ? 

With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow, 

And eye remote, that inly sees 
Fair Beatrice's spirit wandering now 

In some sea-lulled Hesperides, 
Thou mo vest through the jarring street, 
Secluded from the noise of feet 

By her gift-blossom in thy hand, 

Thy branch of palm from Holy Land; — 
No trace is here of ruin's fiery sleet. 

Yet there is something round thy lips 
That prophesies the coming doom, 

The soft, gray herald-shadow ere the eclipse 
Notches the perfect disk with gloom; 

A something that would banish thee, 

And thine untamed pursuer be, 

From men and their unworthy fates, 
Though Florence had not shut her gates, 

And Grief had loosed her clutch and let thee 
free. 



ii4 foments toit& &rt 



Ah ! he who follows fearlessly 

The beckonings of a poet-heart 
Shall wander, and without the world's decree, 

A banished man in field and mart ; 
Harder than Florence' walls the bar 
Which with deaf sternness holds him far 

From home and friends, till death's release, 

And makes his only prayer for peace, 
Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong war ! 

James Russell Lowell. 

CXIV. 
ANTINOUS OF THE VATICAN. 

Antinous, upon thy brow of snow 

It seems as if the gathered sunshine lay 

Of ages, and about thy sweet lips play 

The same glad smiles that wreathed them long 

ago. 
Thy curls' luxuriant clusters seem to glow 
With the old life ; we almost hear thee say 
The word thou usedst to murmur in that day 
When love's kiss burned on thy mouth's per- 
fect bow. 
O sweetest youth that ever human eyes 
Have gazed upon, thou mak'st the heart grow 

warm 
Of him who lifts his glance to thee above. 
And thine, besides the charm of face and form, 
His higher fame of whom the poet cries : 
" How noble is his end who dies for love ! " 1 

Owen Innsly. {Lucy W. Jenniso7i.) 

1 Che bel fin fa chi ben amando more ! 

Petrarch. 



foments toit!) &rt. 115 



cxv. 

IN THE COURT OF THE LIONS : BY MOON- 
LIGHT. 

These lions were sculptured centuries ago 
In that fair court a Sultan made for her 
Who was his heart's delight. Her worshiper 

Was he whom all men worshiped ; proving so 

His love and homage that the ages know 
How fair she was, and how at softest stir 
Of her soft robes — as these proud courts 
aver — 

His kingly heart with kingly love did glow; 

Till he bade crafty workmen come and make 
A palace, lovely for her lovely sake, 

Thick-set with gems, with many a sculptured 
space 
Wrought cunningly out of the creamy stone 
To frame the dusky beauty of her face, — 
Still on those courts the white moon shines, but 
they are gone ! 

Louise Chandler Moulton. 
(Copyright, 1889, by Roberts Brothers.) 

CXVI. 
VENUS OF MILO. 
Grace, majesty, and the calm bliss of life : 

No conscious war 'twixt human will and duty; 
Here breathes, forever free from pain and strife, 
The old, untroubled pagan world of beauty. 
Richard Watson Gilder. 



n6 ffimtntsi toity %lvU 

CXVII. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Michael Angelo {standing before a model 
of St. Peter's.) 

Better than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi, 
And less than thou I will not ! If the thought 
Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous stones 
And swing them to their places ; if a breath 
Could blow this rounded dome into the air, 
As if it were a bubble, and these statues 
Spring at a signal to their sacred stations, 
As sentinels mount guard upon a wall, 
Then were my task completed. Now, alas ! 
Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding 
Upon his hand the model of a church, 
As German artists paint him ; and what years, 
What weary years, must drag themselves along, 
Ere this be turned to stone ! What hindrances 
Must block the way ; what idle interferences 
Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter's, 
Who nothing know of art beyond the color 
Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building 
Save that of their own fortunes ! And what 
then ? 

I have no friends and want none. My own 

thoughts 
Are now my sole companions, — thoughts of 

her, 
That like a benediction from the skies 



foments tottf) &rt* 117 



Come to me in my solitude and soothe me. 

. . . My work is here, 

And only here, the building of St. Peter's. 

Henry W. Longfellow. 



CXV1II. 
HOUSEHOLD ART. 

" Mine be a cot," for the hours of play, 
Of the kind that is built by Miss Greenaway; 
Where the walls are low, and the roofs are red, 
And the birds are gay in the blue o'erhead ; 
And the dear little figures, in frocks and frills, 
Go roaming about at their own sweet wills, 
And play with the pups, and reprove the calves, 
And do naught in the world (but Work) by halves, 
From " Hunt the Slipper " and " Riddle-me-ree" 
To watching the cat in the apple-tree. 

O Art of the Household ! Men may prate 
Of their ways " intense " and Italianate, — 
They may soar on their wings of sense, and 

float 
To the au dela and the dim remote, — 
Till the last sun sink in the last-lit West, 
'Tis the Art at the Door that will please the 

best ; 
To the end of Time 't will be still the same, 
For the Earth first laughed when the children 

came! 

Austin Dobson. 



ii8 foments tott& &rt. 

CXIX. 
UNDER RAPHAEL'S MAGDALENE. 

Be merciful. God's gracious hand 
Has hedged you round. From scarlet brand 
Of sin as sore His care has kept, 
Or like her you, too, might have wept ; 
How dare you judge ? But for the chance 
Of birth, blood, friends, and circumstance, 
Clay of the self-same mould you are, 
And tempted, might have fallen as far. 
Bow, haughty head ! Your conscious worth 
Pales in the sight of heaven and earth, 
Beside repentant grief and shame. 
Not ours to prate of praise or blame, 
When she who seems most lost may stand 
Nearer some day to God's right hand 
Than you or I. We do not know. 
Be merciful. Her Christ was so. 

C. Morton Sciple. 

cxx. 

With hue like that when some great painter 

dips 
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and 

eclipse. 

Shelley. 

CXXL 

In morals, as in art, saying is nothing, doing 
is all. 

Renan. 



Jftoments; tottl) &rt« 



CXXII. 
AN ENGRAVING, AFTER MURILLO. 

A daughter of the centuries of art 
Offered for sale in a shop window lay. 

When southern nature lent each precious part 
To form that woman, in his genial way 

The Spanish painter made his glowing heart 
Look warmly from her eyes, — a summer's day 

Hide all its fragrant secrets in her breast : 

Made lovely lovelier, with love expressed. 

Long, long ago she lived ; long, long ago 

That happy painter wrought who saw her 
face — 

Painting, with blood and milk, the tropic glow 
That lit her cheeks for his dearest solace. 

But yesterday with patient hand and slow, 
Another artist did her beauties trace ; 

With soft gray graven lines, and taste refined, 

Chilled native fervor with the touch of mind. 

Still modestly the picture seemed to live, 
And in itself contain the work of all 

Who ever lived for art : yea, and to give 
Some trait of each, and tenderly recall 

Thought-mellowing hours, hours contemplative. 
... In a shop window, an engraving small, 

Faint image from Murillo's ardent heart, 

Gray daughter of the centuries of art. 

Marrion Wilcox. 



120 foments toitl) &rt. 



CXXI1I. 

A VERY WOFUL BALLADE OF THE ART 
CRITIC. 

(To E. A. Abbey.) 

A Spirit came to my sad bed, 
And weary sad that night was I, 
Who 'd tottered, since the dawn was red, 
Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery, 
Yea, leagues of long Academy 
Awaited me when morn grew white, 
'Twas then the Spirit whispered nigh, 
" Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! 

" Of many a portrait gray as lead, 

Of many a mustard-colored sky, 

Say much, where little should be said, 

Lay on thy censure dexterously, 

With microscopic glances pry 

At textures, Tadema's delight, 

Praise foreign swells they always sky, 

Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! " 

I answered, " 'T is for daily bread, 

A sorry crust, I ween, and dry, 

That still, with aching feet and head, 

I push this lawful industry, 

'Mid pictures hung or low, or high, 

But, touching that which I indite, 

Do artists hold me lovingly ? 

Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! " 



foment* toify &rt. 121 

The Spirit write th inform of Envoy. 

" They fain would black thy dexter eye, 
They hate thee with a bitter spite ; 
But scribble since thou must, or die, 
Take up the pen, my friend, and write ! " 

Andrew Lang. 

CXXIV. 
FEMME INCONNUE OF THE LOUVRE. 

She lived in Florence centuries ago, 

That lady smiling there. 
What was her name or rank I do not know, — 

I know that she was fair. 

For some great man — his name, like hers, forgot 

And faded from men's sight — 
Loved her — he must have loved her — and has 
wrought 

This bust for our delight. 

Whether he gained her love or had her scorn, 

Full happy was his fate. 
He saw her, heard her speak ; he was not born 

Four hundred years too late! 

The palace throngs in every room but this ; 

Here I am left alone. 
Love — there is none to see — I press a kiss 

Upon thy lips of stone. 

Kenyon Cox. 



122 fSlawnte toitl) &tt. 

cxxv. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ah, to build, to build! 
That is the noblest art of all the arts. 
Painting and sculpture are but images, 
Are merely shadows cast by outward things 
On stone or canvas, having in themselves 
No separate existence. Architecture, 
Existing in itself, and not in seeming 
A something it is not, surpasses them 
As substance shadow. Long, long years ago, 
Standing one morning near the Baths of Titus, 
I saw the statue of Laocoon 
Rise from its grave of centuries, like a ghost 
Writhing in pain ; and as it tore away 
The knotted serpents from its limbs, I heard, 
Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony 
From its white, parted lips. And still I marvel 
At the three Rhodian artists, by whose hands 
This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds 
Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins 
Of temples in the Forum here in Rome. 
If God should give me power in my old age 
To build for Him a temple half as grand 
As those were in their glory, I should count 
My age more excellent than youth itself, 
And all that I have hitherto accomplished 

As only vanity. 

Henry W. Longfellow. 



jpomenta toitf) &rt. 123 

CXXVI. 
NEAR AMSTERDAM 
(After Albert Cuyp.) 

Sober gray skies and ponderous clouds, 
With gaps between of pallid blues ; 

Bluff breezes stirring the brown canal ; 
A broad, flat meadow's myriad hues 

Of soft and changeful breadths of green, 
Barred with the silvery grass that bows 

By straight canals, and dotted o'er 

With black and white of basking cows; 

And distant sails of hidden ships 

The ceaseless windmills show or hide, 

Through languid willows white they gleam, 
And over red-tiled houses glide. 

Two sturdy lads with wooden shoes 

Go clumping down the reed-fringed dyke, 

And tow a broad-bowed boat, where dreams 
The quaint, sweet virgin of Van Eyck. 

And slipt from out the revel high, 

Where gay Franz Hals has bid him sit, 

Above the bridge, his lazy pipe 
Smokes placidly the stout De Witt. 

S. Weir Mitchell. 



124 ^omenta tottl) &tt. 

CXXVII. 

PORTRAIT D'UNE DAME ESPAGNOLE. 

(Fortuny.) 

The hand that drew thee lies in Roman soil, 
Whilst on the canvas thou hast deathless 
grown, 

Endued by him who deemed it meaner toil 
To give the world a portrait save thine own. 

Yet had he found thy peer, and Rome forborne 
Such envy of his conquest over Time, 

Beauty had waked, and Art another morn 

Had gained, and ceased to sorrow for her 
prime. 

What spirit was it — where the masters are — 
Brooding the gloom and glory that were 
Spain, 

Through centuries waited in its orb afar, 
Until our age Fortuny's brush should gain ? 

What stroke but his who pictured in their state 
Queen, beggar, noble, Philip's princely 
brood, 

Could thus the boast of Seville recreate, 
Even when one like thee before him stood ? 

Like thee, own child of Spain, whose beauteous 
pride, 

Desire, disdain, all sins thy mien express, 
Should need no absolution — hadst thou died 

Unhouselled, in their imaged loveliness. 



JHomotte toitb &rt. 125 



All this had Fate decreed, — the antique skill, 
The halt, the poise, the long auspicious day, — 

Yielding this once, thy triumph to fulfil, 
Velasquez's sceptre to Fortuny's sway. 

Shine from thy cloud of night, fair star, nor fear 
Oblivion, though men thy dust inurn, 

For who may bid thy counterpart appear 
Until the hand that drew thee shall return ! 

E. C. Stedman. 

CXXVIII. 

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 

(Suggested by the Picture of Holman Hunt.) 

Thou wayfaring Jesus, a pilgrim and stranger, 

Exiled from heaven by love at Thy birth, 
Exiled again from Thy rest in the manger, 

A fugitive child 'mid the perils of earth — 
Cheer with Thy fellowship all who are weary, 

Wandering far from the land that they love ; 
Guide every heart that is homeless and dreary 

Safe to its home in Thy presence above. 

Henry Van Dyke. 
CXXIX 

Art, properly so called, is no recreation ; it 
cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pur- 
sued when we have nothing better to do. It is no 
handiwork for drawing-room tables, no relief of 
the ennui of boudoirs ; it must be understood 
and undertaken seriously, or not at all. To 
advance it, men's lives must be given, and to 
receive it their hearts. 

John Ruskin. 



126 iHomettta toitl) &rt. 

cxxx. 

ANDREA DEL SARTO. 

(Called " The Faultless Painter.") 

But do not let us quarrel any more, 
No, my Lucrezia ; bear with me for once: 
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
You turn your face, but does it bring your 

heart ? 
I '11 work then for your friend's friend, never fear, 
Treat his own subject after his own way, 
Fix his own time, accept to his own price, 
And shut the money into this small hand 
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly ? 
Oh, I '11 content him, — but to-morrow, Love ! 
I often am much wearier than you think, 
This evening more than usual, and it seems 
As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
Here by the window with your hand in mine 
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, 
Both of one mind, as married people use, 
Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
I might get up to-morrow to my work 
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this ! 
Your soft hand is a woman of itself, 
And mine the man's bared breast she curls 

inside. 
Don't count the time lost, neither; you must 

serve. 
For each of the five pictures we require : 
It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — 



Jitomentfii tottb 8rt. 127 



My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! 

— How could you ever prick those perfect ears, 
Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so sweet — 
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, 
Which everybody looks on and calls his, 

And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, 
While she looks — no one's : very dear, no less. 
You smile ? why, there 's my picture ready made, 
There 's what we painters call our harmony ! 
A common grayness silvers everything, — 
All in a twilight, you and I alike 

— You, at the point of your first pride in me 
(That 's gone, you know), — but I, at every point; 
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 

There 's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; 
That length of convent-wall across the way 
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; 
The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease, 
And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 
Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape, 
As if I saw alike my work and self 
And all that I was born to be and do, 
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 
How strange now, looks the life He makes us 

lead; 
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 
I feel He laid the fetter : let it lie ! 
This chamber, for example — turn your head — 
All that 's behind us ! You don't understand 
Nor care to understand about my art, 
But you can hear at least when people speak : 



128 JHomoits tottl) &tt. 



And that cartoon, the second from the door 

— It is the thing, Love! so such things should 

be: 
Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say. 
I can do with my pencil what I know, 
What I see, what at bottom of my heart 
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 
Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 
I do not boast, perhaps : yourself are judge, 
Who listened to the Legate's talk last week, 
And just as much they used to say in France. 
At any rate 't is easy, all of it ! 
No sketches first, no studies, that 's long past : 
I do what many dream of, all their lives, 

— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, 
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, 
Who strive — you don't know how the others 

strive 
To paint a little thing like that you smeared 
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 
Yet do much less, so much less, Some one says, 
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less ! 
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. 
There burns a truer light of God in them, 
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up 

brain, 
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt 
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of 

mine. 
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, 

I know, 



JHomente tottf) &rt. 129 



Reach many a time a heaven that 's shut to me, 
Enter and take their place there sure enough, 
Though they come back and cannot tell the 

world. 
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 
The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 
I, painting from myself and to myself, 
Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame 
Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 
His hue mistaken ; what of that? or else, 
Rightly traced and well ordered ; what of that ? 
Speak as they please, what does the mountain 

care ? 
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what 's a heaven for ? All is silver-gray, 
Placid and perfect with my art : the worse! 
I know both what I want and what might gain; 
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 
" Had I been two, another and myself, 
Our head would have o'er-looked the world ! " 

No doubt. 
Yonder 's a work now, of that famous youth 
The Urbinate who died five years ago. 
('T is copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 
Well, I can fancy how he did it all, 
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, 
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, 
Above and through his art — for it gives way ; 
That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 
A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, 



130 foments toify Slrt. 



Its body, so to speak : its soul is right, 
He means right — that, a child may understand. 
Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it : 
But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 
Out of me, out of me ! And wherefore out ? 
Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, 
We might have risen to Rafael, I and you. 
Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 
More than I merit, yes, by many times. 
But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow, 
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 
Had you, with these the same, but brought a 

mind ! 
Some women do so. Had the mouth there 

urged 
" God and the glory ! never care for gain. 
The present by the future, what is that? 
Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo ! 
Rafael is waiting : up to God, all three ! " 
I might have done it for you. So it seems : 
Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. 
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 
The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? 
In this world, who can do a thing, will not; 
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 
Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the 

power — 
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 



^omenta toitlj 8rt. 131 



'T is safer for me, if the award be strict, 

That I am something underrated here, 

Poor this long while, despised, to speak the 

truth. 
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, 
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 
The best is when they pass and look aside ; 
But they speak sometimes : I must bear it all. 
Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first 

time, 
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, 
Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, 
In that humane great monarch's golden look, — 
One finger in his beard or twisted curl 
Over his mouth's good mark that made the 

smile, 
One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, 
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 
I painting proudly with his breath on me, 
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, 
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 
And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, 
This in the background, waiting on my work, 
To crown the issue with a last reward ! 
A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 
And had you not grown restless . . . but I 

know — 
'T is done and past ; 't was right, my instinct said ; 
Too live the life grew, golden and not gray : 
And I 'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 



132 foments toitl) &rt. 



Out of the grange whose four walls make his 

world. 
How could it end in any other way? 
You called me, and I came home to your heart. 
The triumph was, to have ended there; then, if 
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost ? 
Let my hands frame your face in your hair's 

gold, 
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine ! 
" Rafael did this, Andrea painted that ; 
The Roman's is the better when you pray, 
But still the other's Virgin was his wife" — 
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 
Both pictures in your presence ; clearer grows 
My better fortune, I resolve to think. 
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives, 
Said one day Agnolo, his very self, 
To Rafael ... I have known it all these 

years . . . 
(When the young man was flaming out his 

thoughts 
Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, 
Too lifted up in heart because of it) 
" Friend, there 's a certain sorry little scrub 
Goes up and down our Florence, none cares 

how, 
Who, were he set to plan and execute 
As you are, pricked on by your popes and 

kings, 
Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours ! " 
To Rafael's ! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 
I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, 



foments toitl) %LvU 133 



Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line 

should go ! 
Ay, but the soul ! he 's Rafael ! rub it out ! 
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 
(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? 
Do you forget already words like those ?) 
If really there was such a chance so lost, — 
Is, whether you're — not grateful — but more 

pleased. 
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed ! 
This hour has been an hour ! Another smile ? 
If you would sit thus by me every night 
I should work better, do you comprehend ? 
I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 
See, it is settled dusk now; there 's a star; 
Morello 's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, 
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 
Come from the window, love, — come in, at last, 
Inside the melancholy little house 
We built to be so gay with. God is just. 
King Francis may forgive me : oft at nights 
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, 
The walls become illumined, brick from brick 
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, 
That gold of his I did cement them with ! 
Let us but love each other. Must you go? 
That cousin here again? he waits outside? 
Must see you — you, and not with me? Those 

loans ? 
More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that ? 
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to 

spend ? 



134 ilomenta tott& &tt. 



While hand and eye and something of a heart 
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it 

worth ? 
I '11 pay my fancy. Only let me sit 
The gray remainder of the evening out, 
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 
How I could paint, were I but back in France, 
One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face, 
Not yours this time ! I want you at my side 
To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 
Will you ? To-morrow satisfy your friend. 
I take the subjects for his corridor, 
Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there, 
And throw him in another thing or two 
If he demurs : the whole should prove enough 
To pay for this same cousin's freak. Beside, 
What 's better and what 's all I care about, 
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff ! 
Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does 

he, 
The cousin ! what does he to please you more ? 

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
I regret little, I would change still less, 
Since there my past life lies, why alter it? 
The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 
I took his coin, was tempted and complied, 
And built this house and sinned, and all is 

said. 
My father and my mother died of want. 
Well, had I riches of my own ? you see 



JHomentfl ^itl) &rt. 135 



How one gets rich ! Let each one bear his lot. 
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they 

died: 
And I have labored somewhat in my time 
And not been paid profusely. Some good son 
Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try ! 
No doubt, there 's something strikes a balance. 

Yes, 
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 
This must suffice me here. What would one 

have ? 
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more 

chance — 
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
Meted on each side by the angel's reed, 
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me 
To cover — the three first without a wife, 
While I have mine! So — still they overcome 
Because there's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 

Again the cousin's whistle ! Go, my love. 

Robert Browning. 

CXXXI. 
MICHELANGELO'S MOSES. 

The captain's might, and mystery of the seer — 

Remoteness of Jehovah's colloquist, 
Nearness of man's heaven-advocate — are here : 
Alone Mount Nebo's harsh foreshadow is 
miss'd. 

William Watson. 



136 foments: tout!) &rt. 

CXXXII. 
THE NEW COLOSSUS.* 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, 
With conquering limbs astride from land to 

land; 
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand 
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame 
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name 
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand 
Glows world-wide welcome ; her mild eyes com- 
mand 
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 
" Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp ! " cries 

she 
With silent lips. " Give me your tired, your poor, 
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 
I lift my lamp beside the golden door ! " 

Emma Lazarus. 



CXXXIII. 

But I still insist on my democratic liberty of 
choice, and I go for the man with the gallery 
of family portraits against the one with the 
twenty-five-cent daguerrotype, unless I find out 
that the last is the better of the two. 

O. W. Holmes. 

1 Written in aid of Bartholdi Pedestal Fund, 1883. 



^omenta toitl) &rt 137 



C XXXIV. 

BEFORE TITIAN'S PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF 
AT NINETY. 

(In the Gallery of the Prado at Madrid.) 

O gentle fiery soul, what can thy fame 
Receive of homage that has not been brought ? 
Master of masters ! may the secret caught 
By thee from whispering Death forever shame 
The faltering toiler, may its power be flame 
To wither doubt and fear that set at nought 
Divinest summons ! May thy portrait wrought 
By thee in age inspire renewed high aim ! 
Lo ! by thine art triumphant martyrs kneel, 
Or saints and kings the Holy Child adore ; 
On yonder wall the Emperor Carlos rides, 
Yet here thy soul more dauntlessly abides. 
Thy powers in waning mightily reveal 
Beauty and nobleness unguessed before ! 

Minna Caroline Smith. 

CXXXV. 

O 'er the Rembrandt there — the Caracci here — 
Flutter warmly the ruddy and wavering hues ; 

And Saint Anthony over his book has a leer 
At the little French beauty by Greuze. 

Owen Meredith. 

CXXXVI. 

Genius does what it must, and talent does 

what it can. 

Owen Meredith. 



138 foments tottb &rt. 

cxxxvu. 

THE WINGED VICTORY. 

On the dim borders of an ancient world 

For one breath's space, there stood a heavenly 

form ; 
Perfectly fair, perfectly beautiful. 
Born of men's best and of men's worst desires 
Born of best hope and half-conceived success, 
Paeans of all worlds ringing out her birth, 
The swift-hushed strife of nations in her ears, 
Hot kisses shaken from a thousand lips 
Rained on the sand her foot spurned ; eyes wine- 
bleared 
Looked up, and from hoarse throats half drunk 

with blood 
Hosannas broke. " Oh greeting, greeting — 

Hail ! " 
The hands of kings, fine ringed; the statesman's 

hand, 
Mighty, thick-fingered, full of pride and power ; 
The mailed glove of war, — the sages' hands, 
The yellow, miser, gold-absorbing hand, 
The poet's, and the hand with brush and pen, 
Rose like a laurel yielding wood of trees 
Acclaimed, besought, " oh greeting, greeting 

Hail ! " 
Under the breeze-swift accent of her foot 
A strange bark pressed its curved prow to sea. 
(Oh gods, what from her face and body's shrine 
Of perfect beauty have ye yet withheld 
That an immortal still may equal her 



foments tottl) &tt. 139 



If not excel?) 

Slow rising from the seas, 
And morning lands of lilies, and cold hills 
Stirred wandering mists, and creeping came to 

her 
Encircled, and clung close. 

From head to foot, 
Across her loins, up to her swelling breast 
Took curve, and line and fold, and half-way fell 
From the round, lovely, gently swelling sphere. 
Then the four winds of heaven met and took 

form. 
With the cold brusqueness of the virgin North, — 
And strong eternal sweeping of the East, — 
And vague voluptuous languor of the South, 
And fresh wide-reaching fortune of the West, — 
Melted, and kissed and knit themselves to wings. 
Thus mist clad, and wind winged, she moved to 

life. 
Under her foot the galley put to sea 
She winged it, bore it, sped it ; turning not 
For all the glad sea islands of the dawn ; 
For all the sapphire havens of the night; 
For all the gala portals of the world ; 
The fluttering brilliant banners, the acclaims 
The martial, fame-compelling festivals 
Broke not her dream, and but one zephyr stirred 
The vapors of her clinging draperies. 

To one bright island in the ^Egean Sea, 

To Greece, to blue-bound smiling Samothrace 

She sped, and high upon the shelving shore 



140 foments toitl) &rt 



The galley ran its prow not to be stirred 
For twice a thousand years : 

And thus she came 
To the heart summonings of half a race, 
Into the golden age of Greece and Song 
An Inspiration, Poem, Form, a Dream 
Genius conceived, love born, art perfected. 
And to that island only, (bright sea bound 
That mirage, that rose garden where love was) 
The winged Victory came, 

With those who loved, 
Who died warm-hearted, glowing lip on lip 
Part of the art and glory of the time, 
She laid her down in golden dust to sleep 
Ages and ages. 

And it is to those 
Who love and sleep as if the Victory 
Ever beside them, mingles dust with dust 
Beauty with ashes. 

In whatever dawn 
Their eyes shall see, they look to see her face, 
To wake in her embrace, as one with her, 
Winged, Victorious. 

Marie van Vorst. 



CXXXVIII. 

Noble art is nothing less than the expression 
of a great soul ; and great souls are not common 
things. 

John Ruskin. 



Jftomenta tottfo &tt 141 

CXXXIX. 

ON BEETHOVEN COMPOSING " THE MOON- 
LIGHT SONATA." 

(To the Picture-Sketch by Benjamin Constant.) 

Deep shadows fall upon the simple room 
That genius fills with heavenly peace brought 

near 
In melody to touch all those who hear — 
Which there intoned will echo till Earth's doom. 
'T is born of midnight dark, from out the womb 
Of pain, the misery of deafness drear ; 
Yet when it sounds dull grief doth disappear 
And gladness dawns displacing worldly gloom. 
For see ! how bathed in dream of mystic light 
He sat, the moonbeams on his massive brow 
And front, as inspiration to endow 
His soul that hour with music's rarest might, 
Which trembled urgent from the quaint clavier 
In accents so divinely pure and clear. 

J. Murray Templeton. 

CXL. 
A MADONNA OF FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 

No Heavenly maid we here behold, 
Though round her brow a ring of gold ; 
This baby, solemn-eyed and sweet, 
Is human all from head to feet. 

Together close her palms are prest 
In worship of that godly guest : 
But glad her heart and unafraid 
While on her neck his hand is laid. 



142 ^omenta toitft 8rt» 



Two children, happy, laughing, gay, 
Uphold the little child in play ; 
Not flying angels these, what though 
Four wings from their four shoulders grow. 

Fra Lippo, we have learned from thee 
A lesson of humanity ; 
To every mother's heart forlorn, 
In every house the Christ is born. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



CXLI. 
ON RAPHAEL'S ARCHANGEL MICHAEL. 

From out the depths of crocus-colored morn 
With rush of wings the strong Archangel 

came 
And glistening spear; and leapt as leaps a 
flame 
On Satan unprepared and earthward borne ; 
And rolled the sunless Rebel, bruised and torn, 
Upon the earth's bare plain, in dust and 

shame, 
Holding awhile his spear's suspended aim 
Above his humbled head in radiant scorn. 

So leaps within the soul on Wrong or Lust 
The warrior Angel whom we deem not near, 

And rolls the rebel impulse in the dust, 
Scathing its neck with his triumphal tread, 

And holding high his bright coercing spear 
Above its inexterminable head. 

E. Lee Hamilton. 



foments totti &vt. 143 

CA'Z/7. 

ROMNEY'S REMORSE. 

1 read Hayley's "Life of Romney " the other day — 
Romney wanted but education and reading to make him 
a very fine painter : but his ideal was not high nor fixed. 
How touching is the close of his life ! He married at nine- 
teen, and because Sir Joshua and others had said that 
'marriage spoilt an artist,' almost immediately left his 
wife in the North and scarce saw her till the end of his 
life; when old, nearly mad, and quite desolate, he went 
back to her and she received him and nursed him till he 
died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney's pic- 
tures ! even as a matter of Art, I am sure. — Letters and 
Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald, Vol. I. 

' Beat, little heart — I give you this and this.' 

Who are you? What! the Lady Hamilton? 

Good, I am never weary painting you. 

To sit once more? Cassandra, Hebe, Joan, 

Or spinning at your wheel beside the vine — 

Bacchante, what you will ; and if I fail 

To conjure and concentrate into form 

And color all you are, the fault is less 

In me than Art. What Artist ever yet 

Could make pure light live on the canvas? Art ! 

Why should I so disrelish that short word? 

Where am I ? snow on all the hills ! so hot, 
So fever'd ! never colt would more delight 
To roll himself in meadow grass than I 
To wallow in that winter of the hills. 

Nurse, were you hired ? or came of your own 
will 
To wait on one so broken, so forlorn ? 
Have I not met you somewhere long ago? 



144 foments tottj) &rt» 



I am all but sure I have — in Kendal church — 
O, yes ! I hired you for a season there, 
And then we parted ; but you look so kind 
That you will not deny my sultry throat 
One draught of icy water. There — you spill 
The drops upon my forehead. Your hand 

shakes. 
I am ashamed. I am a trouble to you, 
Could kneel for your forgiveness. Are they 

tears ? 
For me — they do me too much grace — for me ? 
O Mary, Mary ! 

Vexing you with words ! 
Words only, born of fever, or the fumes 
Of that dark opiate dose you gave me, — 

words, 
Wild babble. I have stumbled back again 
Into the common day, the sounder self. 
God stay me there, if only for your sake, 
The truest, kindliest, noblest-hearted wife 
That ever wore a Christian marriage-ring. 
My curse upon the Master's apothegm, 
That wife and children drag an artist down ! 
This seem'd my lodestar in the heaven of Art, 
And lured me from the household fire on 

earth. 
To you my days have been a lifelong lie, 
Grafted on half a truth ; and tho' you say, 
' Take comfort, you have won the Painter's 

fame,' 
The best in me that sees the worst in me, 
And groans to see it, finds no comfort there. 



foments tott& &rU 145 



What fame? I am not Raphael, Titian — no 
Nor even a Sir Joshua, some will cry. 
Wrong there ! The painter's fame ? but mine, 

that grew 
Blown into glittering by the popular breath, 
May float awhile beneath the sun, may roll 
The rainbow hues of heaven about it — 

There ! 
The color'd bubble bursts above the abyss 
Of Darkness, utter Lethe. 

Is it so ? 
Her sad eyes plead for my own fame with me 
To make it dearer. 

Look, the sun has risen 
To flame along another dreary day. 
Your hand. How bright you keep your mar- 
riage ring! 
Raise me. I thank you. 

Has your opiate then 
Bred this black mood ? or am I conscious, more 
Than other Masters, of the chasm between 
Work and Ideal? Or does the gloom of Age 
And suffering cloud the height I stand upon 
Even from myself ? stand ? stood — no more. 

And yet 
The world would lose, if such a wife as you 
Should vanish unrecorded. Might I crave 
One favor ? I am bankrupt of all claim 
On your obedience, and my strongest wish 
Falls flat before your least unwillingness. 
Still would you — if it please you — sit to 
me? 



146 Jlomentg toitl) &tt 



. . . There, there, there ! a child 
Had shamed me at it — Down, you idle tools, 
Stampt into dust — tremulous, all awry, 
Blurr'd like a landskip in a ruffled pool, — 
Not one stroke firm. This Art, that harlot-like 
Seduced me from you, leaves me harlot-like, 
Who love her still, and whimper, impotent 
To win her back before I die — and then — 
Then, in the loud world's bastard judgment-day, 
One truth will damn me with the mindless mob, 
Who feel no touch of my temptation, more 
Than all the myriad lies, that blacken round 
The corpse of every man that gains a name ; 
'This model husband, this fine Artist ! ' Fool, 
What matters ? Six foot deep of burial mould 
Will dull their comments ! Ay, but when the 

shout 
Of His descending peals from heaven, and 

throbs 
Thro' earth and all her graves, if He should 

ask 
4 Why left you wife and children ? for my sake, 
According to my word? ' and I replied 
* Nay, Lord, for Art? why, that would sound so 

mean 
That all the dead, who wait the doom of hell 
For bolder sins than mine, adulteries, 
Wife-murders, — nay, the ruthless Mussulman 
Who flings his bowstrung harem in the sea, 
Would turn, and glare at me, and point and 

jeer, 
And gibber at the worm who, living, made 



foments tottl) &rt. 147 



The wife of wives a widow-bride, and lost 
Salvation for a sketch. 

I am wild again ! 
The coals of fire you heap upon my head 
Have crazed me. . . . 

let me lean my head upon your breast. 

' Beat, little heart ' on this fool brain of mine. 

1 once had friends — and many — none like you. 
I love you more than when we married. Hope ! 
O yes, I hope, or fancy that, perhaps, 
Human forgiveness touches heaven, and 

thence — 
For you forgive me, you are sure of that — 
Reflected, sends a light on the forgiven. 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 



CXLIII. 

The habitual choice of sacred subjects, such 
as the Nativity, Transfiguration, Crucifixion (if 
the choice be sincere), implies that the painter 
has a natural disposition to dwell on the highest 
thoughts of which humanity is capable ; it con- 
stitutes him, so far forth, a painter of the highest 
order, as, for instance, Leonardo, in his painting 
of the Last Supper : he who delights in repre- 
senting the acts or meditations of great men, as, 
for instance, Raphael painting the School of 
Athens, is, so far forth, a painter of the second 
order: he who represents the passions and 
events of ordinary life, of the third. 

John Ruskin. 



148 JHomentg tottl) &vt. 



CXLIV. 

FOR "THE WINE OF CIRCE," BY SIR 
EDWARD BURNE-JONES. 

Dusk-haired and gold-robed o 'er the golden 
wine 
She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and 

shame, 
Sink the black drops ; while lit with fragrant 
flame, 
Round her spread board the golden sunflowers 

shine. 
Doth Helios here with Hecate combine 
(O Circe, thou their votaress !) to proclaim 
For these thy guests all rapture in love's 
name, 
Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign? 

Lords of their hour, they come. And by her 
knee 
Those cowering beasts, their equals hereto- 
fore, 
Wait ; who with them in new equality 

To-night shall echo back the unchanging roar 
Which sounds forever from the tide-strown 
shore 
Where the dishevelled seaweed hates the sea. 

D. G. Rossetti. 

CXLV. 

Sculpture is the art of discarding super- 
fluities. 

A. Canova. 



Jflomente tottf) %LxU 149 

CXL VI. 
EASTER IN FLORENCE. 

The echoes of a bygone strife 

Seemed surging round the dark Bargello; 
Marble and bronze sprang fresh to life 

Beneath the wand of Donatello ; 
" Night " seemed to sleep, and " Dawn " to wake 

Behind the walls of old St. Lawrence, — 
There hung a spell we would not break 

About our Eastertide at Florence. 

Past canvases, by years undimmed, 

From Antwerp, Nuremberg, and Cadiz, 

To mark how nobly Titian limned 
Gray senators and high-born ladies. 



From grave Mantegna's glowing reds 

To soft Correggio's milder graces ; 
From Botticelli's down-cast heads, 

To bright Andrea's smiling faces ; 
And that good Friar, to whom alone 

Of mortal men was spirit given 
To pierce the veil that shrouds the Throne, 

And paint the golden courts of Heaven. 

Silent we stood, in deepest awe, 

Where Raphael's hand has set forever 

The whirlwind Israel's prophet saw 
In vision by the captives' river : 



150 foments tottl) &rt 



Silent, where sits in loveliest guise 
The wistful Virgin Mother, leaning 

To watch her wondrous Infant's eyes, 
Enkindled with divinest meaning. 

Time mows away at memory's flowers, 
He holds their perfume in abhorrence : 

Freely we '11 yield him most of ours, 
But not that Eastertide in Florence ! 

Robert, Lord Houghton. 

CXL VII. 

BEFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST, 

BY RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT 

FLORENCE. 

The Baptist might have been ordained to cry 
Forth from the towers of that huge Pile, wherein 
His father served Jehovah ; but how win 
Due audience, how for aught but scorn defy 
The obstinate pride and wanton revelry 
Of the Jerusalem below, her sin 
And folly, if they with united din 
Drown not at once mandate and prophecy? 
Therefore the Voice spake from the Desert, 

thence 
To her, as to her opposite in peace, 
Silence, and holiness, and innocence, 
To her and to all lands its warning sent, 
Crying with earnestness that might not cease, 
" Make straight a highway for the Lord, — 

repent ! " 

William Wordsworth. 



foments toitf) &rt. 151 

CXL VIII. 

MILAN. 

(Da Vinci's Christ.) 

All day long, year after year, 
Maid and man and priest and lay 

Wander in from crowded streets, 

And through the long, cool gallery stray. 

And with them, in the fading light, 
We loiter past the pictured wall, 

Till lo ! a face before us comes, 

And something wistful seems to fall 

From two strange eyes that speak to all ; 

For here a priest, and there a maid, 
Two lads, a soldier, and a bonne, 

Before the rail their steps have stayed. 

What message bore this awful face, 
Through all the waning centuries fled ? 

What says it to the gazer now? 
What said it to the myriad dead 

Who came and went like us to-day, 
And, pausing here in silence, all 

In silence laid their weight of sins 
Before this still confessional ? 

A face more sad man never dreamed, 
A face more sweet man never wrought ; 

So solemn-sad, so solemn-sweet, 
Serenely set in quiet thought. 



152 foments toitl) %LxL 



The silent sunlight slips away, 

The soldiers pass, the bofine goes by ; 

The painter drapes his copy in, 

And stops his work and heaves a sigh. 

And followed by those eyes, that have 

The patience of eternity, 
We carry to the bustling street 

Their loving Benedicite. 

S. Weir Mitchell. 



CXLIX. 
UNPAID WORK. 

He hit the world's taste, and for what he gave 
It more than paid him — fame and fortune 
squander'd. 

He overdid its taste — became its slave; 
It bought him, and he pander'd. 

'T is well to be repaid for what you give : 

To work unpaid, for love of work, is better — 

Bestowing all for nothing while you live — 
And leave the world your debtor. 

Robert Leighton. 



CL. 

He that seeks popularity in art closes the 
door on his own genius ; as he must needs 
paint for other minds, and not for his own. 

Washington Allston. 



^omenta tott& &tt. 153 

CLI. 
BEAUTY. 

There is not anything the soul more craves 

Than Beauty. It exalts the merest line 
That through our every-day experience waves — 
Seeks blindly the Divine. 

For what in very truth is this we crave, 

Which neither loads the board nor fills the 
purse, 
Yet, wanting which, the earth were but a grave, 
And life itself a curse ? 

The visual presence of the living God, 

That permeates creation, comes and goes 
In substance and in shadow, greens the sod, 
And paints and scents the rose : 

And flows through man into his works of art — ■ 
The picture's glow, the statue's breathing 
gleam ; — 
For not a touch of Beauty stirs the heart 
But comes of the Supreme ! 

Robert Leighton. 

CLI I. 
In some sense a person who has never seen 
the rose-color of the rays of dawn crossing a 
blue mountain twelve or fifteen miles away, can 
hardly be said to know what tenderness in color 
means at all ; bright tenderness he may, indeed, 
see in the sky or in a flower, but this grave ten- 
derness of the far-away hill-purples he cannot 
conceive. John Ruskin. 



154 JHomente tottl) &rt 

CLIII. 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave 
You need not clap your torches to my face. 
Zooks ! what 's to blame ? you think you see a 

monk ! 
What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds, 
And here you catch me at an alley's end 
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? 
The Carmine 's my cloister : hunt it up, 
Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal, 
Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, 
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 
Weke, wekc, that 's crept to keep him company ! 
Aha! you know your betters? Then, you'll 

take 
Your hand away that 's fiddling on my throat, 
And please to know me likewise. Who am I ? 
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 
Three streets off — he's a certain . . . how d'ye 

call? 
Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, 
I' the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you 

were best ! 
Remember and tell me the day you're hanged, 
How you affected such a gullet's-gripe ! 
But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves 
Pick up a manner, nor discredit you : 
Zooks ! are we pilchards, that they sweep the 

streets 
And count fair prize what comes into their net? 



foments toitl) &rt. 155 



He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! 
Just such a face ! Why, sir, you make amends. 
Lord, I 'm not angry ! Bid your hang-dogs go 
Drink out this quarter-florin to the health 
Of the munificent House that harbors me 
(And many more beside, lads ! more beside!) 
And all 's come square again. I 'd like his 

face — 
His, elbowing on his comrade in the door 
With the pike and lantern, — for the slave that 

holds 
John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair 
With one hand ("Look you, now," as who 

should say) 
And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped ! 
It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, 
A wood-coal or the like ? or you should see ! 
Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. 
What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 
You know them, and they take you ? like enough ! 
I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 
'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. 
Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to 

haunch. 
Here 's spring come, and the nights one makes 

up bands 
To roam the town and sing out carnival, 
And I 've been three weeks shut within my mew, 
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 
And saints again. I could not paint all night — 
Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 
There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 



156 Jftomenta toitl) 8ri. 



A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whiffs of 

song, — 
Flower <?' the broo?n, 

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb / 
Flower o 1 the quince, 

I let Lisa go, and what good in life since f 
Flower <?' the thy?ne — and so on. Round they 

went. 
Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter 
Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, — 

three slim shapes, 
And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh 

and blood 
That 's all I 'm made of ! Into shreds it went, 
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, 
All the bed furniture — a dozen knots, 
There was a ladder ! Down I let myself, 
Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so 

dropped, 
And after them. I came up with the fun 
Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met, — 
Flower <?' the rose, 

If Fve been ?nerry, what matter who knows? 
And so, as I was stealing back again, 
To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 
Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work 
On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast 
With his great round stone to subdue the 

flesh, 
You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see ! 
Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your 

head — 



foments toitb &tt. 157 



Mine 's shaved — a monk, you say — the sting 's 

in that ! 
If Master Cosimo announced himself, 
Mum 's the word naturally ; but a monk ! 
Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now ! 
1 was a baby when my mother died 
And father died and left me in the street. 
I starved there, God knows how, a year or two 
On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, 
Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, 
My stomach being empty as your hat, 
The wind doubled me up and down I went. 
Old aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand 
(Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew), 
And so along the wall, over the bridge, 
By the straight cut to the convent. Six words 

there, 
While I stood munching my first bread that 

month : 
" So, boy, you 're minded," quoth the good fat 

father 
Wiping his own mouth, 't was refection-time, — 
" To quit this very miserable world ? 
Will you renounce " . . . " the mouthful of 

bread?" thought I; 
By no means ! Brief, they made a monk of me; 
I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, 
Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking house, 
Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 
Have given their hearts to — all at eight years 

old. 
Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 



158 jHoments tott& &vt 



'Twas not for nothing — the good bellyful, 
The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, 
And day-long blessed idleness beside ! 
"Let's see what the urchin's fit for" — that 

came next. 
Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 
Such a to-do ! They tried me with their books : 
Lord, they 'd have taught me Latin in pure 

waste ! 
Flower o 1 the clove, 

All the Latin I construe is, " A mo " / love ! 
But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 
Eight years together as my fortune was, 
Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 
The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, 
And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — 
Which gentleman processional and fine, 
Holding a candle to the Sacrament, 
Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch 
The droppings of the wax to sell again, 
Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — 
How say I ? — nay, which dog bites, which lets 

drop 
His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — 
Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, 
He learns the look of things, and none the less 
For admonition from the hunger-pinch. 
I had a store of such remarks, be sure, 
Which, after I found leisure, turned to use: 
I drew men's faces on my copy-books, 
Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, 
Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, 



foments tottf) &rt 159 



Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, 
And made a string of pictures of the world 
Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun, 
On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks 

looked black. 
"Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye 

say ? 
In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 
What if at last we get our man of parts, 
We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese 
And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine 
And put the front on it that ought to be ! " 
And hereupon he bade me daub away. 
Thank you ! my head being crammed, the 

walls a blank, 
Never was such prompt disemburdening. 
First every sort of monk, the black and white, 
I drew them, fat and lean : then, folks at church, 
From good old gossips waiting to confess 
Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — 
To the breathless fellow at the altar- foot, 
Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 
With the little children round him in a row 
Of admiration, half for his beard, and half 
For that white anger of his victim's son 
Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 
Signing himself with the other because of Christ 
(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 
After the passion of a thousand years), 
Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head 
(Which the intense eyes looked through), came 

at eve 



i6o foments toitl) &rt. 



On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 
Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers 
(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was 

gone. 
I painted all, then cried, " 'T is ask and have ; 
Choose, for more 's ready ! " — laid the ladder 

flat, 
And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. 
The monks closed in a circle and praised loud 
Till checked, taught what to see and not to 

see, 
Being simple bodies, — " That 's the very man ! 
Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog ! 
That woman 's like the Prior's niece who comes 
To care about his asthma ; it 's the life ! " 
But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and 

funked ; 
Their betters took their turn to see and say : 
The Prior and the learned pulled a face 
And stopped all that in no time. "How? 

what 's here? 
Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all ! 
Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true 
As much as pea and pea ! it 's devil's game ! 
Your business is not to catch men with show, 
With homage to the perishable clay, 
But lift them over it, ignore it all, 
Make them forget there 's such a thing as flesh. 
Your business is to paint the souls of men — 
Man's soul, and it 's a fire, smoke ... no, it 's 

not . . . 
It 's vapor done up like a new-born babe — 



JHoments toitl) &vt. \6\ 



(In that shape when you die it leaves your 

mouth), 
It 's . . . well, what matters talking, it 's the 

soul ! 
Give us no more of body than shows soul ! 
Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, 
That sets us praising, — why not stop with him? 
Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head 
With wonder at lines, colors, and what not? 
Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms ! 
Rub all out, try at it a second time ! 
Oh ! that white smallish female with the breasts, 
She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would 

say, — 
Who went and danced, and got men's heads cut 

off! 
Have it all out ! " Now, is this sense, I ask ? 
A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 
So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go farther 
And can't fare worse ! Thus, yellow does for 

white 
When what you put for yellow 's simply black, 
And any sort of meaning looks intense 
When all beside itself means and looks naught. 
Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, 
Left foot and right foot, go a double step, 
Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, 
Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, 
The Prior's niece . . . patron saint — is it so 

pretty 
You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 
Sorrow or joy ? won't beauty go with these ? 



1 62 Jftomente toitl) &rt 



Suppose I 've made her eyes all right and blue, 
Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, 
And then add soul and heighten them threefold? 
Or say there 's beauty with no soul at all — 
(I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 
If you get simple beauty and naught else, 
You get about the best thing God invents : 
That 's somewhat : and you '11 find the soul you 

have missed, 
Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 
" Rub all out ! " Well, well, there 's my life, in 

short, 
And so the thing has gone on ever since. 
I 'm grown a man, no doubt, I 've broken bounds : 
You should not take a fellow eight years old 
And make him swear to never kiss the girls, 
I 'm my own master, paint now as I please — 
Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! 
Lord, it 's fast holding by the rings in front — 
Those great rings serve more purposes than 

just 
To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse ! 
And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave 

eyes 
Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, 
The heads shake still, — " It 's art's decline, my 

son! 
You're not of the true painters, great and old; 
Brother Angelico 's the man, you '11 find; 
Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: 
Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third ! " 
Flower o' the fiine^ 



jloments; tott!) &xt 163 



You keep your ?nistr . . . manners, and I HI 

stick to mine! 
I 'm not the third, then : bless us, they must 

know ! 
Don't you think they 're the likeliest to know, 
They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, 
Clinch my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint 
To please them — sometimes do, and sometimes 

don't ; 
For, doing most, there 's pretty sure to come 
A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — 
A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — 
(Flower <?' the peach, 

Death for us all, and his own life for each /) 
And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, 
The world and life's too big to pass for a 

dream, 
And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 
And play the fooleries you catch me at 
In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass 
After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 
Although the miller does not preach to him 
The only good of grass is to make chaff. 
What would men have ? Do they like grass 

or no — 
May they or mayn't they? all I want's the 

thing 
Settled forever one way. As it is, 
You tell too many lies and hurt yourself : 
You don't like what you only like too much, 
You do like what, if given you at your word, 
You find abundantly detestable. 



1 64 foments toitl) &rt» 



For me, I think I speak as I was taught. 
I always see the garden, and God there 
A-making man's wife : and, my lesson learned, 
The value and significance of flesh, 
I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. 

You understand me : I 'm a beast, I know. 
But see, now — why, I see as certainly 
As that the morning-star's about to shine, 
What will hap some day. We 've a youngster 

here 
Comes to our convent, studies what I do, 
Slouches and stares and let's no atom drop : 
His name is Guidi — he '11 not mind the monks — 
They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk — 
He picks my practice up — he '11 paint apace, 
I hope so — though I never live so long, 
I know what 's sure to follow. You be judge ! 
You speak no Latin more than I, belike; 
However, you 're my man, you 've seen the world 

— The beauty and the wonder and the power, 
The shapes of things, their colors, lights, and 

shades, 
Changes, surprises, — and God made it all ! 

— For what ? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 
For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, 
The mountain round it and the sky above, 
Much more the figures of man, woman, child, 
These are the frame to ? What 's it all about ? 
To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon, 
Wondered at? oh, this last of course! — you 

say. 
But why not do as well as say, — paint these 



foments Mil) %LxU 165 



Just as they are, careless what comes of it ? 
God's works — paint any one, and count it 

crime 
To let a truth slip. Don't object, " His works 
Are here already ; nature is complete : 
Suppose you reproduce her — (which you can't) 
There 's no advantage ! you must beat her, 

then." 
For, don't you mark ? we 're made so that we 

love 
First when we see them painted, things we have 

passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; 
And so they are better, painted — better to us, 
Which is the same thing. Art was given for 

that ; 
God uses us to help each other so, 
Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, 
Your cullion's hanging face ? A bit of chalk, 
And trust me but you should, though ! How 

much more 
If I drew higher things with the same truth ! 
That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 
Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, oh 
It makes me mad to see what men shall do 
And we in our graves ! This world 's no blot 

for us 
Nor blank ; it means intensely, and means good ; 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 
" Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer ! " 
Strikes in the Prior : " when your meaning 's 

plain 



1 66 ^omenta tottl) %LxL 



It does not say to folks — remember matins, 
Or, mind you fast next Friday ! " Why, for 

this 
What need of art at all? A skull and bones, 
Two bits of stick nailed cross-wise, or, what 's 

best, 
A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 
I painted a Saint Lawrence six months since 
At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style : 
" How looks my painting, now the scaffold 's 

clown ? " 
I asked a brother : " Hugely," he returns — 
" Already not one phiz of your three slaves 
Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, 
But 's scratched and prodded to our heart's con- 
tent, 
The pious people have so eased their own 
With coming to say prayers there in a rage : 
We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 
Expect another job this time next year, 
For pity and religion grow i' the crowd — 
Your painting serves its purpose ! " Hang the 
fools ! 

— That is — you '11 not mistake an idle word 
Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, Got wot 
Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 
The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! 
Oh, the church knows ! don't misreport me, 

now 
It 's natural a poor monk out of bounds 
Should have his apt word to excuse himself : 



foments; toitl) &rt. 167 



And hearken how I plot to make amends. 

I have bethought me : I shall paint a piece 

. . . There 's for you ! Give me six months, 

then go, see 
Something in Sant' Ambrogio's ! Bless the 

nuns ! 
They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint 
God in the midst, Madonna and her babe, 
Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood, 
Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 
As puff on puff of grated orris-root 
When ladies crowd to church at midsummer. 
And then i' the front, of course a saint or two — 
Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, 
Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and 

white 
The convent's friends and gives them a long 

day, 
And Job, I must have him there past mistake, 
The man of Uz (and Us without the z, 
Painters who need his patience). Well, all 

these 
Secured at their devotion, up shall come 
Out of a corner when you least expect, 
As one by a dark stair into a great light, 
Music and talking, who but Lippo ! I ! — 
Mazed, motionless, and moon-struck — I 'm the 

man! 
Back I shrink — what is this I see and hear? 
I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake, 
My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 
I, in this presence, this pure company I 



1 68 Jflomente \oity &ri. 



Where 's a hole, where 's a corner for escape? 
Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 
Forward, puts out a soft palm — " Not so fast ! " 
— Addresses the celestial presence, " nay — 
He made you and devised you, after all, 
Though he 's none of you ! Could Saint John 

there, draw — 
His camel-hair made up a painting-brush ? 
We come to brother Lippo for all that, 
Iste perfecit opus ! " So, all smile — 
I shuffle sideways with my blushing face 
Under the cover of a hundred wings 
Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you 're gay 
And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut 
Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 
The hot-head husband ! Thus I scuttle off 
To some safe bench behind, not letting go 
The palm of her, the little lily thing 
That spoke the good word for me in the nick, 
Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would 

say. 
And so all 's saved for me, and for the church 
A pretty picture gained. Go, six months 

hence ! 
Your hand, sir, and good-by: no lights, no 

lights ! 
The street 's hushed, and I know my own way 

back. 
Don't fear me ! There 's the gray beginning. 

Zooks ! 

Robert Browning. 



^omenta toitfc ^Crt. 169 



CLIV. 

EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES ON A PORTRAIT 
OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, 
PAINTED BY KNELLER. 

The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth, 
That happy air of majesty and truth, 
So would I draw : but oh ! 't is vain to try; 
My narrow genius does the power deny. 
The equal lustre of the heavenly mind, 
Where every grace with every virtue 's joined; 
Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe, 
With greatness easy, and with wit sincere ; 
With just description show the soul divine, 
And the whole princess in my work should 
shine. 

Alexander Pope. 



CLV. 
ART. 

The thousand painful steps at last are trod, 
At last the temple's difficult door we win ; 

But perfect on his pedestal, the god 
Freezes us hopeless when we enter in. 

William Watson. 

CLVI. 

In framing artists, 



Art hath thus decreed 

nit others 1 

Shakespeare. 



To make some good, but others to exceed. 



170 JHomentfi; tott!) Strt* 



ex VII. 
TURNER'S OLD TfMtfRAIRE. 

(Under a Figure symbolizing the Church.) 

Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things; 
The breath of heaven bore up thy cloudy wings, 
And, patient in their triple rank, 
The thunders crouched about thy flank, 
Their black lips silent with the doom of kings. 

The storm-wind loved to rock him in thy pines, 

And swell thy vans with breath of great designs ; 

Long-wildered pilgrims of the main 

By thee relaid their course again, 

Whose prow was guided by celestial signs. 

How didst thou trample on tumultuous seas, 
Or, like some basking sea-beast stretched at 

ease, 
Let the bull-fronted surges glide 
Caressingly along thy side, 
Like glad hounds leaping by the huntsman's 

knees ! 

Heroic feet with fire of genius shod, 
In battle's ecstasy thy deck have trod, 
While from their touch a fulgor ran 
Through plank and spar ; from man to man, 
Welding thee to a thunderbolt of God. 

Now a black demon, belching fire and steam, 

Drags thee away, a pale, dismantled dream, 

And all thy desecrated bulk 

Must landlocked lie, a helpless hulk, 

To gather weeds in the regardless stream. 



foments tottb &tt. 171 



Woe 's me, from Ocean's sky-horizoned air 
To this ! Better, the flame-cross still aflare, 
Shot-shattered to have met thy doom 
Where thy last lightnings cheered the gloom, 
Than here be safe in dangerless despair. 

Thy drooping symbol to the flagstaff clings, 

Thy rudder soothes the tide to lazy rings, 

Thy thunders now but birthdays, greet, 

Thy planks forget the martyr's feet, 

Thy masts what challenges the sea-wind brings. 

Thou a mere hospital, where human wrecks, 

Like winter-flies, crawl those renowned decks, 

Ne'er trodden save by captive foes, 

And wonted sternly to impose 

God's will and thine on bowed imperial necks ! 

Shall nevermore, engendered of thy fame, 
A new sea-eagle heir thy conqueror name, 
And with commissioned talons wrench 
From thy supplanter's grimy clench 
His sheath of steel, his wings of smoke and 
flame ? 

This shall the pleased eyes of our children see ; 
For this the stars of God long even as we ; 
Earth listens for his wings ; the Fates 
Expectant lean ; Faith cross-propt waits, 
And the tired waves of Thought's insurgent sea. 
James Russell Lowell. 



172 ilomcnta tottl) &rt. 

CL VIII. 

OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS. 

(By Leonardo da Vinci.) 

Mother, is this the darkness of the end, 

The Shadow of Death ? and is that outer sea 
Infinite imminent Eternity? 

And does the death-pang by man's seed sustain'd 

In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend 
Its silent prayer upon the Son, while he 
Blesses the dead with his hand silently 

To his long day which hours no more offend ? 

Mother of grace, the pass is difficult, 

Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls 
Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering 
through. 
Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols, 
Whose peace abides in the dark avenue 
Amid the bitterness of things occult. 

D. G. Rossetti. 

CLIX. 
A great architect must be a great sculptor 
or painter. This is a universal law. No per- 
son who is not a great sculptor or painter can 
be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or 
painter, he can only be a builder. The three 
greatest architects hitherto known in the world 
were Phidias, Giotto, and Michael Angelo; with 
all of whom, architecture was only their play, 
sculpture and painting their work. 

John Ruskin. 



foments tottf) &vU 173 



cza". 

SONNET ON BRITON RIVIERE'S PAINTING: 
DANIEL'S ANSWER TO THE KING. 

" Ah, if 'twere true, how greater far than song 
The fact itself! An Hebrew prophet-seer 
Alone, unharmed, where falchioned Death flames 

clear 
From yellow eye-balls burning in a throng 
Of lions ; and, through instants roars prolong, 
Pants with a blood-thirst, trembles at a tear 
Just fallen from the prophet's Israel dear ; 
Then crouches, snarling like a vanquished 

wrong." 

'T is true. What boots it, critic, thou dost 

doubt ? 
Open a soul's den. Ask Love's angel bound: 
" Art safe ? " Lo, crowned Evil from above 
Listens, through compromise, to hear Death's 

shout, 
While sharp-clawed passions wander silent 

round, 
Dazed, cowed, and conquered by transfigured 

love. 

Frank W. Gunsaulus. 



CLXI. 

Beauty alone endures from age to age, 
From age to age endures, handmaid of God. 

T. B. Aldrich. 



174 foments toitl; 8rt. 

CLXIl. 

A MAGDALEN OF THE DRESDEN GALLERY. 

I. 

Gerhard Dow — Lys — Correggio. 

Not she, whose fruitless tears avow a youth 
Less yielded to warm love than basely sold ; 
Angry with shame, who clutches still her gold, 
Drooped in satiety, not bound with ruth, — 
Nor she, who mars with penances uncouth 
Her fatal beauty, that no eyes behold 
Save a skull's hollow orbs, yet overbold 
Deems heaven's grace a debt to grief, forsooth — 
Nor that dust-kissing face, whence sorrow's 

tooth 
Has gnawed all passion, leaving it as cold 
As her own emptied vase ; whose hands enfold 
The Book from which remorse has taught her 

truth — 
Though still so fair in ruin, she might win 
The world to doubt if sentence waits on sin. 

II. 

ZURBARAN — GUIDO. 

Alone, not lingering to adore or mourn, 

First seen, first sent, from that transfigured 

grave, 
With " go in peace " — to seek no desert-cave. 
But loving, erring lives to lift and warm: 
With prophet tears for sisters yet unborn, 



foments; toitl) &tt. 175 



She, first forgiven, only blessed, will crave 
Their heritage in all her dear Lord gave; 
Grace for crushed hearts, killed by the harsh 

world's scorn — 
Or rapt in vision, lifting eyes above 
Softened through sorrow to ecstatic love, 
Will hail the promise of the golden years 
When balm shall be distilled from bitterest tears, 
God's law rule man's, and all who, following her, 
Love, to be lost, not unredeemed shall err. 

A. R. Macdonough. 

CLXIII. 

THE PORTRAIT. 

O Lord of all compassionate control, 
O Love ! let this my lady's picture glow 
Under my hand to praise her name, and show 
Even of her inner self the perfect whole : 
That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal, 
Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw 
And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may 
know 
The very sky and sea-line of her soul. 
Lo ! it is done. Above the enthroning throat 
The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss, 
The shadowed eyes remember and foresee. 
Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note 
That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!) 
They that would look on her must come to 
me. 

D. G. Rossetti. 



176 foments toify £rt* 

CLXIV. 

HIRAM POWERS' GREEK SLAVE. 

They say Ideal beauty cannot enter 
The house of anguish. On the threshold stands 
An alien Image with enshackled hands, 
Called the Greek Slave ! as if the artist meant 

her 
(That passionless perfection which he lent her, 
Shadowed not darkened where the sill expands) 
To so confront man's crimes in different lands 
With man's ideal sense. Pierce to the centre, 
Art's fiery finger ! and break up ere long 
The serfdom of this world ! appeal, fair stone, 
From God's pure heights of beauty against 

man's wrong ! 
Catch up in thy divine face, not alone 
East griefs but west, and strike and shame the 

strong, 
By thunders of white silence, overthrown. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



CLXV. 
MICHAEL ANGELO'S SLAVE. 

Of life, of death, the mystery and woe 

Witness in this mute, carven stone the whole. 

That suffering smile were never fashioned so 
Before the world had wakened to a soul. 

R. W. Gilder. 



foments tott& Strt* 177 

CLXVI. 

CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN. 

(Suggested by the Picture of Rembrandt in the National 
Gallery.) 

Master, well done ! thy sombre colors stoop, 

As what they paint did, to the root of things ! 
Thy Christ hath eyes, whose weary glances 
droop, 
Marred with much love, and all the ache it 
brings : 
Thy children — soft, albeit, their Syrian grace — 
Clasp sunburnt breasts, and drink of milk 
that cost 
Sweat to provide it ; from each mother's face 
Is gone the bridal beauty ; lapsed and lost 
Bliss from these bondsmen ; yet, how the 
Divine 
Breaks through the clay ! how Truth's gold 
gilds the story ! 
How longing for heaven's light makes earth's 
gloom shine ! 
How lovely, at its lowest, is love's glory ! 
We see Him as He sate in Palestine. 

Lord Christ ! these are the little ones that come ! 

Thou spakest, " Suffer them ; " yea, Thou 
didst say, 
" Forbid them not, for in my kingdom some 

Are like to such ! " O Lord ! do Angels lay 
Small aching heads on sorrow-laden bosoms ? 

Do Thy young angels toil, and starve and 



178 JHaments tottl) %LvU 



Hardly for these will ope life's morning blos- 
soms 
Before their days bring griefs, their nightly 
sleep 
Dreams of the Roman whip. Ah, Master Mild ! 

Be some great secret of Thy kingdom said 
To keep some grown man glad as this male 
child, 
The woman pure as is that tender maid ! 
They " see Thy Father's face ! " Then, how 
beguiled ? 



Little sweet sister, standing at His knee ! 

Small peasant sister ! sucking at thy thumb, 
Touched to thy tiny heart with the mystery, 

Glad to be brought, but far too shy to come ; 
Ah ! tremble, but steal closer ; let it cover 

All of thy head, that potent, piteous hand ; 
And, mothers ! reach your round-eyed babies 
over 
To take their turn, nought though they under- 
stand. 
For these thereby are safe, being so kissed 
By that Love's lips which kisses out of 
heaven ; 
And we, with little children, but no Christ, 
Press near ; perchance the blessing may be 
given 
From theirs to ours, though we His face have 
missed. 

Sir Edwin Arnold. 



^omenta toitl) &rt. 17.9 

CLXVII. 
THE PATHOS OF ART. 

Oft seeing the old painters' art, 
We find the tear unbidden start, 
And feel our full hearts closer grow 
To the far days of long ago. 

Not burning faith, or godlike pain, 
Can thus our careless thought enchain ; 
The heavenward gaze of souls sublime, 
At once transcends, and conquers time. 

Nor pictured form of seer or saint, 
Which hands inspired delight to paint ; 
Art's highest aims of hand or tongue, 
Age not, but are forever young. 

But some imperfect, trivial scene, 
Of homely life that once has been, 
Of youth, so soon to pass away, 
Of happy childhood's briefer day, 

Or humble daily tasks portrayed, — 
The thrifty mistress with her maid ; 
The flowers upon the casement set, 
Which in our Aprils blossom yet; 

The long processions never done ; 
The time-worn palace, scarce begun*, 
The gondolier, who plies his oar 
For stately sirs or dames of yore ; 



i8o foments tottl) &rt. 



. The girl with fair hair morning-stirred, 
Who swings her casement for her bird ; 
The hunt, the feast, the simple mirth 
Which marks the marriage or the birth 

The burly forms, from side to side, 
Swift rolling on the frozen tide ; 
The long-haired knights ; the ladies prim ; 
The chanted madrigal, or hymn ; 

The opera, with its stately throng; 
The twilight church aisles stretching long ; 
The spires upon the wooded wold; 
The dead pathetic life of old ; — 

These all the musing mind can fill — 
So dead, so past, so living still : 
Oh, dear dead lives ! oh, hands long gone ! 
Whose life, whose Art still lingers on. 

Sir Lewis Morris. 

CLXVIII. 

In youth the artist voweth lover's vows 
To Art, in manhood maketh her his spouse. 
Well if her charms yet hold for him such joy 
As when he craved some boon and she was coy! 

William Watson. 

CLXIX. 

Thank God, I, too, am a painter. 

Correggio. 



foments tott& 8rt. 181 

CLXX. 
AN HOUR IN A STUDIO (F. L.) 

Each picture was a painted memory 
Of the fair plains he loved, and of their life 
Weird, mystical, dark, inarticulate, — 
And cities hidden high against the blue, 
Whose sky-hung steps one Indian could guard. 
The enchanted Mesa there its fated wall 
Lifted, and all its story lived again, — 
How, in the happy planting time, the strong 
Went down to push the seeds into the sand, 
Leaving the old and sick. Then reeled the 

world 
And toppled to the plain the perilous path. 
Death climbed another way to them who stayed. 
He showed us pictured thirst, a dreadful sight ; 
And many tales he told that might have come, — 
Brought by some planet-wanderer, — fresh from 

Mars, 
Or from the silver deserts of the moon. 

But I remember better than all else 
One night he told of in that land of fright, — 
The love-songs swarthy men sang to their herds 
On the high plains to keep the beasts in heart; 
Piercing the silence one keen tenor voice 
Singing, " Ai nostri monte " clear and high 
Instead of snakes and fences round about 
They circled them with music in the night. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



1 82 foments tottf) &rt. 

CLXXI. 
ART. 

She stood, a vision vestureless and fair, 
Glowing the canvas with her orient grace : 
A goddess grave she stood, with such a face 
As in Elysium the immortals wear. 
But some, unworth)', as they pondered there, 
Cold to the marvel of her look divine, 
Saw but a form undraped, in Beauty's shrine. 

Then she, it seemed, rebuked them : " Old and 

young 

Have worshiped at the temple where I breathe, 

And deathless laurels, for my sake, enwreathe 

The brows of him from whose pure thought I 

sprung : 
Lips consecrate as yours his praise have sung, 
Who neither sued for praise nor courted ease, 
But reverently wrought, as from his knees. 

" No raiment can the base or mean reclaim, 
And that which sacred is must sacred be, 
Clothed but in rags or robed in modesty. 
In the endeavor still is felt the aim : 
The workman may by skill exalt his name, 
But, toiling fault and failure to redeem, 
Cannot create what 's loftier than his dream. 

" For chaste must be the soul that chastely sees, 
The thought enlightened, and the insight sure 
That separates the pure from the impure ; 



Jftomenta toitb %Lxt. 183 



And who Earth's humblest faith from error frees, 
Awakening ideal sympathies, 
Uplifts the savage from his kindred sod ; 
Who shows him beauty speaks to him of God." 
Florence Earle Coates. 

CLXXII. 

ARS SERVATRIX. 

(On Reading Win, Morris' " Hopes and Fears for Art.") 

We grow less worthy as the years roll by; 

Our common life is an incarnate wrong. 

We fight where victory is to the strong, 
111 is our good, and low alone is high. 
Gold is our god, and whoso hath can buy 

The land, the lives, the " ^or of the throng ; 

No ancient pride doth to our age belong ; 
Aimless we live, and therefore hopeless die. 

Come, rich-robed Mistress, hid so long a while ! 
We look for thee stern-visaged, as is meet, 
For well we know thy service will be pain 
Till we have much renounced. Then thou wilt 
smile, 
And in thy smile a stately life and sweet 
Will rise, and Labor bringing Beauty in 
its train. 

Henry Norman. 

CLXXII I 

I have no secret but hard work. 

J. W. M. Turner. 



1 84 jflome&t* iuitl) &vt. 

CLXXIV. 

MILLAIS' « HUGUENOTS." 

(To H., playing one of Mendelssohn's " Songs without 
Words.") 

Your fav'rite picture rises up before me, 

Whene'er you play that tune ; 
I see two figures standing in a garden, 

In the still August noon. 

One is a girl's, with pleading face turned up- 
wards, 
Wild with great alarm ; 
Trembling with haste, she binds her broidered 
kerchief 
About the other's arm, 

Whose gaze is bent on her in tender pity, 

Whose eyes look into hers 
With a deep meaning, though she cannot read it, 

Hers are so dim with tears. 

What are they saying in the sunny garden, 

With summer flowers ablow ? 
What gives the woman's voice its passionate 
pleading ? 

What makes the man's so low ? 

" See, love ! " she murmurs ; " you shall wear 
my kerchief, 

It is the badge, I know ; 
And it will bear you safely through the conflict, 

If — if, indeed, you go ! 



f&amznU toit\> Irt 185 



"You will not wear it? Will not wear my 
kerchief ? 

Nay ! Do not tell me why, 
I will not listen ! If you go without it, 

You will go hence to die. 

" Hush ! Do not answer ! It is death, I tell 
you! 

Indeed, I speak the truth. 
You standing there, so warm with life and vigor, 

So bright with health and youth ; 

" You would go hence out of the glowing sun- 
shine, 

Out of the garden's bloom, 
Out of the living, thinking, feeling present 

Into the unknown gloom ! " 

Then he makes answer, " Hush ! O hush, my 
darling ! 

Life is so sweet to me, 
So full of hope, you need not bid me guard it, 

If such a thing might be ! 

" If such a thing might be ! — but not through 
falsehood, 
I could not come to you ; 
I dare not stand here in your pure, sweet 
presence, 
Knowing myself untrue." 



1 86 JHomenta toitl) &rt 



" Child ! child ! I little dreamt in that bright 
summer, 

When first your love I sought, 
Of all the future store of love and anguish 

Which I, unknowing, wrought. 

" But you '11 forgive me ? Yes, you will forgive 
me, 
I know, when I am dead! 
I would have loved you, — but words have scant 
meaning; 
God loved you more instead ! " 

Then there in silence in the sunny garden, 

Until, with faltering tone, 
She sobs, the while still clinging closer to him, 

" Forgive me — go — my own ! " 

So human love, and death by faith unshaken, 

Mingle their glorious psalm, 
Albeit low, until the passionate pleading 

Is hushed in deepest calm. 

Anonymous. 

CLXXV. 

The true work of art is but a shadow of the 
Divine perfection. 

Michael Angelo. 

CLXXV I. 

Nature is God's, Art is man's instrument. 

Sir T. Overbury. 



foments toitl) 8rt. 187 

CLXXVII. 
OLD AND NEW ART. 

(Saint Luke the Painter.) 

Give honor unto Luke Evangelist; 

For he it was (the ancient legends say) 
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and 
pray. 

Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist 

Of devious symbols : but soon having wist 
How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day 
Are symbols also in some deeper way ; 

She looked through these to God and was God's 
priest. 

And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, 

And she sought talismans, and turned in vain 
To soulless self-reflections of man's skill, — 
Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still 
Kneel in the latter grass to pray again, 
Ere the night cometh and she may not work. 

D. G. Rossetti. 

CLXXVIII. 

Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravish- 
ing combination of tender curves and spheric 
softness that ever stood for woman ; yet if the 
lip have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, 
if the brow be insincere, if in the minutest par- 
ticular the physical beauty suggest a moral ugli- 
ness, that sculptor — unless he be portraying 
a moral ugliness for a moral purpose — may 



1 88 JHoments mb &xU 



as well give over his marble for paving stones. 
Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, 
will not accept his work. For, indeed we may 
say that he who has not yet perceived how 
artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent 
lines, which run back into a common ideal origin, 
and who therefore is not afire with moral beauty 
just as with artistic beauty, — that he, in short, 
who has not come to that stage of quiet and 
eternal frenzy in which the beauty of holiness 
and the holiness of beauty mean one thing, 
burn as one fire, shine as one light within him ; 
he is not yet the great artist. 

Sidney Lanier. 

{From " Poems of Lanier." Copyright, 1884, 1891, by 
Mary D. Lanier, and published by Charles Scribner's 
Sons.) 



CLXXIX. 

EPITAPH ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 

(In Westminster Abbey, 1723.) 

Kneller, by Heaven, and not a master, taught, 
Whose art was nature, and whose pictures 

thought ; 
Now for two ages having snatched from fate 
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great, 
Lies crowned with princes' honors, poets' lays, 
Due to his merit and brave thirst of praise. 

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie 
Her works ; and, dying, fears herself may die. 

Alexander Pope. 



jHomente toitlj &rt. 189 

CLXXX. 

PICTURES. 

A lurid sunset, red as blood, 
Firing a sombre, haunted wood ; 
And from the shadows, dark and fell, 
One hurrying with the face of Hell. 

Two at a banquet board alone, 
In dalliance, the feast being done. 
And one behind the arras stands, 
Grasping an axe with quivering hands. 

A high cliff-meadow lush with Spring; 
Gay butterflies upon the wing ; 
Beneath, beyond, unbounded, free, 
The foam-flecked, blue, pervading sea. 

A clustering hill-town, climbing white 
From the gray olives up the height, 
And on the inland summits high 
Thin waters split as from the sky. 

A rain-swept moor at shut of day, 
And by the dead unhappy way 
A lonely child untended lies: 
Against the West a wretch who flies. 

Cold dawn, which flouts the abandoned hall 
And one worn face, which loathes it all ; 
In his ringed hand a vial, while 
The gray lips wear a ghastly smile. 



190 foments toitf) 3trt. 



Corinthian pillars fine, which stand 
In moonlight on a desert sand ; 
Others o'erthrovvn, in whose dark shade 
Some fire-eyed brute its lair has made. 

Mountainous clouds embattled high 
Around a dark blue lake of sky ; 
And from its clear depths, shining far, 
The calm eye of the evening star. 

A moonlight checkered avenue ; 
Above, a starlit glimpse of blue: 
Amid the shadows spread between, 
The gray ghost of a woman seen. 

Sir Lewis Morris. 

CLXXXI. 
WOMAN AND ARTIST. 

I thought to win me a name 

Should ring in the ear of the world ! — 

How can I work with small pink fists 
About my fingers curled ? 

Then adieu to name and fame ! 

They scarce are worth at the best 
One touch of this wet little, warm little mouth 

With its lips against my breast. 

Alice Williams Brotherton. 

CLXXXI I. 

Painting is thought conveyed to canvas. 

Apelles. 



foments toil!) $tt. 191 

CL XXXIII. 
THE LION OF LUCERNE. 

When those brave Swiss in fine obedience fell, 

Heroically heedful of their trust, 
Art pondered by what new great means to tell 

Her reverence for their consecrated dust, 
Until at last, bewildered and dismayed, 
To mightier Nature she appealed for aid ! 

Then these two blended powers, together grown 
One glorious mourner, eloquent though stern, 

Created from the mountain's living stone, 
This grand memorial, Lion of Lucerne, 

Where Art and Nature, towering side by side, 

For once are monumentally allied ! 

Edgar Fawcett. 



CL XXXIV. 

Fine Art is that in which the hand, the head, 

and the heart of man go together. Recollect 

this triple group ; it will help you to solve many 

difficult problems. 

John Ruskin. 



CLXXXV. 

There is no great genius free from some 
tincture of madness. 

Seneca. 



192 foments tottf) &rt. 

CLXXXVI. 
A PORTRAIT BY BURNE-JONES. 

The shadows fold her 'round 

And sink profound 

Into intense blackness of background, 

Against which, lily white, 

Pure as a sun's ray, she springs to light. 



And she sits there, still, so still 

That I can hear the far-off call of thrushes 

On summer mornings from the hawthorn bushes 

Or orchards full of mellow sound. 

Thus I fill 
Another canvas with tall trees abloom, 
And the chaste blue of English skies 

Over an English home. 



As clear streams, 

Untroubled to their sweet depths, are her eyes. 
What warm surprise 
Will make her red who pale 
Now reads life to a limit, and there stops ? 
One shall part the veil ; 
And open vistas of fair years to be, 
And little forms that cling about the knee 
Shall steal, dear guests, unlooked for, silently 
Into the virgin spirit of her dreams. 

Marie van Vorst. 






JHouients toit& %LxU 193 

CLXXXVII. 

"ANGELO, THOU ART THE MASTER." 

I. 

Angelo, thou art the master ; for thou in thy art 
Compassed the body, the soul ; the form and the 

heart. 
Knew where the roots of the spirit are buried 

and twined, 
The springs and the rocks that shall suckle, — 

and torture and bind. 
Large was thy soul like the soul of a god that 

creates — 
Converse it held with the stars and the imminent 

Fates. 
Knewest thou — Art is but Beauty perceived 

and expressed, 
And the pang of that Beauty had entered and 

melted thy breast. 
Here by thy Slave, again, after long years do I 

bow, — 
Angelo, thou art the master, yea, thou, and but 

thou. 

Here is the crown of all beauty that lives in the 

world ; 
Spirit and flesh breathing forth from these lips 

that are curled 
With sweetness and sorrow as never, oh, never 

before, 
And from eyes that are heavy with light, and 

shall weep nevermore ; 
*3 



194 foments toitl) &rt. 



And lo, at the base of the statue, that monster 

of shape — 
Thorn of the blossom of life, mocking face of 

the ape. 
So cometh morn from the shadow and murk of 

the night ; 
From pain springeth joy, and from flame the 

keen beauty of light. 



Beauty, — oh, well for the hearts that bow down 

and adore her : 
Heart of mine, hold thou in all the world nothing 

before her. 
All the fair universe now to her feet that is 

clinging 
Out of the womb of her leaped with the dawn, 

and the singing 
Of stars. O thou Beautiful ! — thee do I wor- 
ship and praise 
In the dark where thy lamps are ; again in thy 

glory of days, 
Whose end and beginning thou blessest with 

piercing delight 
Of splendors outspread on the edge of the robe 

of the night. 

Ah, that sweetness is sent not to him whose dull 

spirit would rest 
In the bliss of it ; no, not the goal, but the 

passion and quest ; 



JHomeitte; toitl) &tt. 195 



Not the vale, but the desert. Oh, never soft 

airs shall awaken 
Thy soul to the soul of all Beauty, all heaven, 

and all wonder ; 
The summons that comes to thee, mortal, thy 

spirit to waken, 
Shall be the loud clarion's call and the voices of 

thunder. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 

CL XXX VI II. 
MADONNA. ' 

How well we know them — I and you — 

This pair so fond, so blest ; 
The Mother, in her gown of blue, 

The child upon her breast ! 

Close to her heart she holds Him there 

(Our mothers held us so), 
This woman in her carved chair, 

And will not let Him go. 

We stagger on through the year's din, 

From green leaf unto sear ; 
But when the Christmas bells begin 

To clang their ancient cheer, 

No more we think of cares and harms, 

Our Christ a man of woe ; 
We put Him in His mother's arms, 

And will not let Him go ! 

LlZETTE WOODWORTH REESE. 



196 fflomtnts tott!) SCrt* 

CLXXXIX. 
ON A SURF-ROLLED TORSO OF VENUS. 
(Found at Tripoli Vecchio, and now in the Louvre.) 

One day in the world's youth, long, long ago, 
Before the golden hair of Time grew gray, 
The bright warm sea, scarce stirred by the 
dolphin's play, 

Was swept by sudden music soft and low ; 

And rippling, as 'neath kisses, parted slow, 
And gave a snowy, dripping goddess birth, 
Fairer than fairest daughters of the earth ; 

Who brought fresh life to all men here below. 

And, lo, that self-same sea has now upthrown 

A mutilated Venus, rolled and rolled 
For ages by the surf, and that has grown 
More soft, more chaste, more lovely than of 
old, 
With every line toned down, so that the stone 
Seems seen as through a veil which ages hold. 
E. Lee Hamilton. 



CXC. 
PORTIA'S PICTURE. 

Fair Portia's counterfeit ? What demigod 
Hath come so near creation ? Move these eyes ? 
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, 
Seem they in motion ? Here are severed lips, 
Parted with sugar breath ; so sweet a bar 



;|Homente toitl) &rt. 197 



Should sunder such sweet friends : Here in her 

hairs 
The painter plays the spider ; and hath woven 
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, 
Faster than gnats in cobwebs : But her eyes, — 
How could he see to do them? having made 

one, 
Methinks it should have power to steal both 

his, 
And leave itself unfurnished. 

Shakespeare. 



CXCL 

THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS. 

(A Picture by Rembrandt.) 

Wise Rembrandt ! thou couldst paint, and thou 

alone, 
Eyes that had seen what never human eyes 
Before had looked on ; him that late had passed 
Onward and back through gates of Death and 

Life. 

O human face where the celestial gleam 
Lingers ! Oh, still to thee the eyes of men 
Turn with deep, questioning worship ; seeing 

there, 
As in a mirror, the Eternal Light 
Caught from the shining of the central Soul 
Whence came all worlds and whither shall 

return. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



198 JHamente toitf) 8rt. 

CXCII. 
ART AND LOVE. 

He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken 
Pierces the crust of this existence through) 
And smiled beyond on that his genius knew 

Ere mated with his being. Conscious then 

Of his high theme alone, he smiled again 
Straight back upon himself in many a hue, 
And tint, and light, and shade, which slowly 
grew 

Enfeatured of a fair girl's face, as when 

First time she smiles for love's sake with no 
fear. 

So wrought he, witless that behind him leant 
A woman, with old features, dim and sere, 
And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming 
tear, 

And with a voice, like some sad instrument, 

That sighing said, " I 'm dead there ; love me 

here ! " 

J. W. Riley. 

{From " Afterwhiles" The Bowen-Merrill Co.) 
CXCIII. 

Genius unexerted is no more genius than a 
bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

CXCIV. 

A bad painter caricatures himself. 

Wouvermans. 



foments tottf) Slrt. 199 



cxcv. 

Have faith in nothing but in industry. 

Be at it late and early ; persevere, 

And work right on through censure and applause, 

Or else abandon Art. 

Henry W. Longfellow. 



CXCVI. 

"FINIS CORONAT OPUS." 

" The end shall crown the work " — 
Ah, who shall tell the end ! 
It is a woesome way, 
And clouds portend. 

The work is all we know — 

Enough for our faint sight. 
The end God knows. Press on 

The crown — is light. 

R. R. Bowker. 



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volume is typographically very pretty. — The Philadelphia 
Press. 

"The Lover's Shakspere," compiled by Mrs. Chloe 
Blakeman Jones, is what the title indicates, a collection of 
quotations pertaining to the various phases of love. They 
are carefully selected, adroitly grouped, and daintily deco- 
rated.— The Dial. 

Sold by all booksellers, or mailed on receipt of price, by 

A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers 
CHICAGO 



EC 11 1899 



015 907 187 A 



